


random access memory

by futuredescending



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, M/M, Robots, Roxy/Tilde, Sheep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-01-22 18:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12488188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/futuredescending/pseuds/futuredescending
Summary: As one of the few remaining human veterinarians in the United Kingdom, Eggsy is forced to take a post in the Scottish Highlands as the personal veterinarian to a vast farm of cattle and livestock. It wouldn't be so bad, actually, if it weren't for the fact said farm is owned by the man only known asMerlin: wealthy billionaire, technology genius, and the cause of so much of the grief in Eggsy's life.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based off this anonymous prompt I received forever ago: _Please, write a Merwin AU where Eggsy is a uni student about to graduate and become a veterinarian and goes to the Scottish highlands during the last summer holiday before he graduates. Maybe for a internship or clinical requirement he has to do to graduate, and maybe Roxy goes with him? His path crosses with a Scottish tech wizard, and Eggsy knows after meeting him that Merlin is his future husband. Merlin is equally taken with Eggsy. Especially after he helps treat his new puppy._
> 
> I’m pretty sure the original prompter meant for this to be a lot more conventional and less weird than how it turned out, but as soon as I read “tech wizard,” I don’t know. My brain just exploded and this thing veered wildly off course. I'm sorry.

For all its remote isolation, it was _stunning_ up here. Like, magazine spread breathtaking. There were craggy mountains as far as the eye could see unfurling beneath moody grey skies, and clouds wafting in like billowing curtains. But even the thick cloud cover occasionally gave way to divine breaks of sunlight and the stern tiers in the landscape were relieved by the streaming runoffs from the past heavy rains.

“I’m half-expecting to meet three witches round the next bend,” Roxy muttered from the front seat. Cold weather be damned, she was wearing the tiniest pair of denim cut-offs she could find, legs pinned up on the dash to get as much rare sun on her pale legs as she could.

“I think it’s lovely,” Eggsy defended, unable to tear his gaze away from the window his face was plastered against like an excited dog.

“I’m glad you feel positively about your new home,” Tilde said from behind the wheel, glancing briefly at Eggsy in the rear view mirror and rewarding him with an encouraging smile.

“See?” Eggsy purposely directed at Roxy. “At least there’s someone who wants to wish me well.”

Roxy sighed and Tilde relinquished a hand from the shift to rest consolingly on her thigh and covertly cop a feel. “I just don’t see why you couldn’t have taken the veterinarian job in London. You’d get paid thrice as much and you wouldn’t have to be so bloody far away.”

“I didn’t take the job in London because it wasn’t a veterinarian job,” Eggsy explained for what felt like the thirtieth time, “It was an offer to be a veterinarian bot programmer. At least up here, I’d actually get to touch a living, breathing animal.”

Tilde snorted. “Leave it to the Scots to mistrust AI, especially when it’s from one of their own.”

“Says the girl who prefers driving the car herself,” Roxy pointed out.

“I like driving,” Tilde said. “I don’t like doing my own laundry, though.”

“All your clothes are dry clean only.”

As they started bickering in the singularly petty way only longtime couples could do, Eggsy rolled his eyes and sunk down into the backseats he was relegated to for the long drive up. London to an unpronounceable swath of land in the Highlands, part of which Tilde’s company wanted to turn into a golf course, god knew why. Aside from being kind and generous sorts, it’s the reason she and Roxy offered to give him a ride up to his new home: his new employer was the very man they hoped to convince to sell.

Beyond those barebone details, Eggsy didn’t, in fact, know any more about his employer than what anyone else knew about the elusive “Father of AI,” the man simply known as _Merlin_ who knocked Bill Gates down a rung among the world’s top billionaires a few years ago.

As a result of Merlin’s breakthroughs, the feared AI revolution had come and gone, and now robots were as ubiquitous as mobile phones. They were waiters in restaurants, janitors in the corridors, muscle in the warehouses, train operators on the Tube, security guards at night, dustmen in the streets, attendants at the petrol stations, cashiers in the fast food chains, and all the other previous low-paying, hard-labour jobs that people on Eggsy’s old estate used to have.

There were more poor and unemployed than ever, of course, but no one really cared about that until some of the previously middle-class jobs started going to the more sophisticated bots as well: physician assistants, nannies, secretaries, clerks, librarians, chefs...and veterinarians, funnily enough.

It made Eggsy’s choice of career a bit mad in the eyes of most, seeing as how he chose the most obsolete course of studies available: learning to perform actual care on the animals themselves as opposed to the far more common and lucrative programmer.

And now the deemed tech wizard in question was, unbelievably, hiring for an actual human veterinarian, not a bot, to live and work on his northern estate. It’d have made an excellent juicy column for the _Daily Mail_ if layers upon layers of ironclad NDAs weren’t involved in the hiring process.

Part of Eggsy thought the post was someone having a laugh, but most of him was desperate enough by that point to go for it, irony or no. Naturally, there was no competition for the job, because there were almost no qualified, trained human veterinarians left in the UK anymore.

He was hired almost immediately.

But while it was nice to secure a job right out of school (those school loans were nothing to sneeze at), now that it was all becoming more real by the second, anxiety bloomed and settled like lead in the pit of his stomach. What if there _was_ a catch to all this? He didn’t inquire too closely about the reasons _why_ a human veterinarian was specifically asked for. Perhaps he should have done. On a larger moral scale, was it ethically right for him to take a job from someone who made a direct profit from something that resulted in so many people, people of Eggsy’s own class—his friends, their families, his neighbours, _their_ neighbors—being that much more worse off?

Eggsy didn’t know, but his guilt apparently wasn’t strong enough to reverse his decision, not when he could finally feed himself and have enough left over to send back to his mum and baby sister to get far away from Dean as possible.

At the GPS’s chiming alert, Tilde pulled off the main road onto an even narrower strip of blacktop, the scent in the air gradually becoming permeated with manure. Roxy and Tilde ooh'd and ahh'd over the fluffy white herds of grazing sheep pockmarking the hills and the occasional set of shaggy, ginger highland cows and stocky ponies while it dawned on Eggsy that all of these animals would soon be his under his care.

Eventually, the road ended with a surprisingly modest-sized detached house at the crest of a large hill that certainly didn’t indicate it was the retreat of a misanthropic tech billionaire: two stories, couldn’t be more than a few possible rooms per floor, the exterior a drab brown sandstone-concrete mix that was common to the building construction of the area. His new home.

“Well,” Tilde declared brightly once the car pulled to a stop. “Isn’t this charming?”

Roxy turned in her seat to look back at him. “Swear to God, Eggsy, you better call me once a night or I’m going to assume you’ve been killed and eaten.”

“It’s not _that_ bad,” Eggsy tried, and clambered out of the car to fetch all his worldly belongings from the boot.

They tried to make their goodbyes lighthearted despite Roxy’s mournful eyes and the way they may have hung off each other’s embrace a bit too long. After all, neither party was going anywhere anytime soon as Tilde attempted to work her deals. They even made tentative plans for lunch in a week’s time to celebrate their settling in.

As Tilde’s zippy little Juke wound its way around a swell of brown heather and disappeared from view, Eggsy took a deep breath, gathered up all his things and tromped up the rocky path to the front door.

His fist, however, remained hovered over the door instead of knocking. There was still time to phone Roxy and get them to turn back around and pick him up—

The door suddenly swung open.

Eggsy didn’t know what he expected, certainly not a tall, bespectacled, exceedingly well-dressed bloke in a posh suit who looked rather out of place among his rugged environment. The toff pinned him to the spot with an assessing stare before his expression cleared up and transformed into a mildly congenial greeting in perfected RP: “You must be Mr Unwin. My name is Harry Hart. Please call me Harry. Merlin’s been expecting you. Do come in.”

Harry held the door open for him. That was that: Eggsy had no choice but to follow him into the house.

“How was your journey? Good, I hope. A bit of a ways up from London, I know, but the views here can’t be beat. I’m to show you to your room and then give you a tour of the grounds to get you oriented with what you’ll be working with. You’ll have to be highly self-sufficient if you want to live here. It’s a large estate but there are very few living beings who actually dwell on the premises. Aside from the animals, of course. The master chose this location specifically for its remoteness. You probably won’t see him very often. He’s a curmudgeonly bastard who doesn’t like people, so don’t take it personally.”

Harry chattered nonstop, seemingly in no need of Eggsy’s participation or of even taking a breath, whilst Eggsy found himself tripping over his own two feet studying the interiors of the house. It was as bewilderingly quaint and rustic as they came.

“All areas on the ground and first floors are open access, save for the basement, which is solely the master’s domain. Not to worry, though: you won’t be able to access anything you’re not supposed to even if you tried. There is, ironically, a sun room, but also a library and working satellite television and internet. The fireplace works—the logs are out back in the shed. You should treat these rooms as you would your own home, provided you aren’t a complete heathen who doesn’t know how to pick up after yourself. There will be no one else to do it for you. Meals are on your own. No one is going to cook for you either, but you have full access to a well-stocked kitchen and pantry. Grocery delivery comes once every two weeks. You can put in your order for requested items via the URL found in the welcome packet you should have received one week ago. We’re stocked with a full suite of medical supplies, but in case of an emergency, there are several numbers you can phone for assistance, also located in your welcome packet.”

Harry waved him towards the stairs. His long legs made keeping up with him a bit of a struggle as Eggsy tried to juggle his bags that Harry made no offer to help with. He wondered what Harry’s purpose here actually was. A company employee? Member of the board? Why was he stuck playing guide now?

At last, Harry showed him to his room upstairs. “I’ll give you some time to settle in before our tour of the grounds and an overview of your duties shall commence in two hour’s time. Feel free to rest, put away your things, and wash up.”

Eggsy heaved all his worldly possessions into the cosy but nice enough room, letting them drop unceremoniously to the floor before turning back to him. “I’m sorry, but what was it you said you did again?”

“I didn’t,” Harry said, giving him a beatific bullshitting smile. “But consider me the help.”

And with that, he departed.

 

_____

 

The grass glistened with damp and the air was rife with petrichor as Harry showed him where he would be spending most of his time: stables retrofitted with a modern office and a whole dedicated laboratory packed with some seriously high-grade medical supplies and not an assistant bot in sight, which Eggsy appreciated. Merlin cared about his animals, Harry explained, and spared no expense to see to their health and comfort, even if it meant keeping a personally dedicated veterinarian on site at all times.

The walking paths around the farm were incredibly muddy, and Eggsy’s tatty trainers that were about two years past replacing sunk right into the squishy wet earth, reluctant to emerge again without a struggle. Somehow, Harry didn’t have a speck of dirt on either on the hems of his trousers or his fancy dress shoes despite tirelessly walking the exact same trails as Eggsy.

Harry wasn’t kidding about the isolation. They must have walked acres and acres of seeming pristine highland terrain that had only ever been touched by hungry ruminants before they encountered another human being doing something with a pitchfork and loose piles of hay.

“Ah, Mr Unwin, this is Hamish Douglas. He likes to literally get knee deep in the shit around here,” Harry introduced as they came upon the man in question. “Mr Douglas, this is Gary Unwin up from London, the only candidate for our job posting, and hence, our new human veterinarian.”

Hamish was very tall, even a bit taller than Harry. Unlike Harry, he was more fittingly dressed for the weather in a Fair Isle jumper, tweed coat, wellies and old jeans caked in mud. Slender with an impressively strong build crafted from all the hard labour he must have regularly engaged in, but when Eggsy’s perusal reached his face, his thoughts nearly all scattered to the wind.

Hamish was that sort of bowled-over attractive that left Eggsy rarely nervous and tongue-tied. Flat cap atop his head. Intense hazel eyes that weren’t unkind, prominent brow, and strong jaw. But his bearing, really, was arguably his most captivating trait: he held himself in a manner that was utterly confident and capable, eminently comfortable in his own skin.

He looked now at Eggsy like he could see every inch of him, a sensation that made Eggsy feel hot and prickly despite the chill in the air.

“Hullo,” Eggsy said on autopilot as he extended his hand, and then his mouth simply ran away from him. “You can call me Eggsy. Please, call me Eggsy. Mr Unwin was my dad and Gary was my grandfather who always smelled like piss.”

As far as introductions went, it was not his most charming effort.

Nevertheless, Hamish’s big, callused hand practically swallowed Eggsy’s as he shook it, giving him a nod. “Eggsy. Call me Hamish. Don’t listen to a word Harry here says. I swear he wasn’t programmed to be such a little shit.”

Eggsy could have wept with relief at that warm, full-bodied voice that was actually intelligible. Definitely not from around here then, which was surprising. Then his brain caught up with the actual content of Hamish’s words and his mouth fell open as he stared at Harry, then back at Hamish. “Harry’s a...he’s not...he’s….?”

“A sweating, defecating, skin-shedding, rank-smelling irrational sack of flesh and bile?” Harry finished, visibly shuddering. “How dreadful. Perish the thought.”

“He was designed to be a personal assistant, but as you can see, all he’s capable of doing is talking shit, insisting on only wearing exorbitantly expensive bespoke suits, and wasting my best whisky.” Hamish scoffed. “Irrational.”

“I thought bots couldn’t eat or…” Eggsy trailed off, still trying to wrap his mind around the fact Harry was a bot. He was so _lifelike_. He had Eggsy completely fooled.

“Oh, he doesn’t,” Hamish said. “He just likes to go through several glasses a day and hold them like a self-important prick.”

“I am admiring the _molecules_ ,” Harry sniffed, affronted at them both. “I wouldn’t expect either of you to understand.”

“I ain’t ever seen a bot able to pass as a human before. He looks so real,” Eggsy said in wonder, stepping right up to Harry to get a closer look at what had to be artificial skin and hair. Everything was so realistic. The pores, the light wrinkles, the way the skin even slightly sagged at the jaw and slackened around the mouth. Even the little mole beneath his nostril looked genuine.

From behind his thick-rimmed glasses, Harry’s eyes narrowed and his fingers reached up to flick Eggsy right between his brows.

“Ow!” Eggsy backed off, rubbing at the offended spot and scowling. “Thought they couldn’t hurt nobody neither.”

“Harry’s not like any bot you’ll ever see in the consumer markets,” Hamish explained as Harry readjusted his cufflinks like he was greatly inconvenienced. “He’s the most sophisticated robot created to date.”

“Guess Merlin didn’t learn from Asimov, I take it,” Eggsy grumbled, staring warily at Harry now.

“That’s part of the reason why his code will never be mass produced. Harry’s one of a kind.” Hamish gave Harry a look that could only be described as fond. “A right pain in the arse, but he’s alright.”

“So we the only humans in this place?” Eggsy asked. “Does Merlin even live here? Harry said he’s got the basement all locked down. That where he makes more of his creepy bots?”

“Creepy,” Harry said flatly, narrowing his gaze and taking an alarming step towards Eggsy, who took an immediate step back.

“We’re the only living, breathing humans here most of the time, yes,” Hamish said, amused. “Be nice, Harry.”

Once Harry appeared to settle back down, Eggsy asked, “Have you ever met him? Merlin, I mean?

Hamish smirks. “Here and there. He works mostly in the basement, which is more vast than you could guess. Man likes to keep to himself.”

“Don’t know whether that’s a relief or not. To be honest, I had my reservations about this job. Aside from the fact it were the only one available.”

Hamish tilted his head curiously. “Why’s that?”

“Never really liked bots much. Can’t get away from them, though,” Eggsy said, giving a worrying glance to an unimpressed Harry. “No offence, mate.”

“It that what eventually swayed your decision to come up here?”

“Sort of. But mostly, I just like working with animals, right?” Eggsy shrugged, unable to keep from hunching in on himself. “Besides, ain’t it more curious this Merlin bloke wants a human vet in the first place? Sounds like he could have just built one himself.”

“A fair question,” Hamish conceded, scratching at the stubble along his jaw. “Perhaps one day you should ask him.”

“No thanks, mate,” Eggsy said. “Absentee boss works just fine for me here. Don’t know what I’d properly do if I had to meet the man who helped fuck up things even more for people like me.”

What Eggsy didn’t expect, however, was the curiously blank expression on Hamish’s face.

“Well,” Harry said, suddenly breaking in just as things were starting feel awkward. “The tour’s not over, Unwin. We ought to continue and leave Mr Douglas to his duties. Come along.”

“Right,” Eggsy said, feeling like he somehow really stepped in it this time, but he didn’t know how to fix it. “Guess, I’ll be seeing you around then.”

Hamish nodded graciously enough, though. “See you around, Eggsy. I hope you’ll come to at least enjoy your stay here, despite your wanker of a boss.”

Eggsy smiled faintly and hurried off to catch up with Harry and his mercilessly long gait.

 

_____

 

Though Eggsy was exhausted, feet practically numb from all the bloody walking he had to do with Harry, and wanted nothing more than to fall face first into his bed and sleep for at least a week, he dutifully pulled out his mobile and rung Roxy as promised.

She picked up before the second set of rings even finished. “Are you still alive and uneaten?”

Eggsy rolled his eyes, even though she couldn’t see it. “No, I’ve been picked clean to the bone. It’s my animated skeleton phoning you right now, come to warn you against building any more garish golf courses in Scotland.”

“A skeleton friend will be useful in the coming wars,” Roxy said.

“Stop reading all them Sawney Bean stories.”

“ _Never_. So, how is it? Have you met _him_?”

“No. I’m told he’s a recluse. So long as he signs my cheques, I don’t really care if he’s actually just a preserved brain in a jar at this point. As for everything else, it’s…” Eggsy blew out a breath and let his gaze roam around his room, taking in its barren impersonality: the empty shelves that needed knick-knacks and books, the wardrobe that needed his clothes, the plain off-white walls that held no photos or decorations. “It’s fine. Nicer than what I deserve, in all honesty.”

“Nonsense! You deserve the very best, especially from someone with such deep pockets.”

“Apparently even billionaires like to pretend they haven’t got any money these days,” Eggsy said.

“Fucking minimalism. Try living with a fucking Swedish girlfriend, Eggs. It’s all fucking IKEA and negative space. I tell her a little bit of clutter is cosy, right? Makes a house feel like a home. You know what she says?” Roxy’s voice pitches lower and more precise in a spot-on imitation of Tilde. “‘ _Roxy, there are useful storage containers for that. They come in all colours like white, off-white, light grey, and, oh this a very bold choice: cream_.’”

Eggsy smirked. “Moan all you want, you still love it.”

“Yeah, I suppose I do.” Roxy sighed as if disgusted with herself. “Speaking of significant others, or others full stop, please tell me it isn’t just you and a preserved brain in a jar on that big, lonely farm with a bunch of sheep.”

“It’s not just me. There’s the actual animal caretaker and a…” He didn’t quite know how to categorise Harry. “...A valet, sort of? Merlin’s personal valet. They’re interesting.”

“Interesting. Are they cute? Do you have a thing for one of them already? Or both?” Roxy was too astute for her own good.

“Jesus, Rox. No,” he vehemently denied. “First of all, one them ain’t even real. He’s a bot. Like, a really, really humanoid one. Merlin made him.”

“ _Really_.” Roxy’s tone was utterly fascinated. “You know it’s illegal for a bot to pass as a human.”

“Yeah, well. I think this Merlin is more the beg-for-forgiveness than ask-for-permission sort. His name’s Harry. Fooled me.”

“Do you think Merlin created him to be his personal robot sex slave?”

Eggsy closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “God, Rox.”

“What? Why else create a humanoid robot?” Roxy defended. “I mean, are you alright with it? You did come all the way to the arse end of this isle in part to get away from AI.”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I knew I was never going to be rid of it completely, especially not when I’m bloody working for the man who created it all in the first place, but...in a weird way, it sort of helps that he could pass for human. Easier to forget at times.”

“He must totally be your type. You always were a soft touch for a father figure.” Before Eggsy could protest, though, Roxy became serious. “Will you really be alright there? Like, really? You know you only have to say the word and we’ll come pick you up and take you back home.”

“Is it really home anymore?” Eggsy asked. “After everything?”

To that, Roxy didn’t have really have an answer.

 

_____

 

After hours of tossing and turning, Eggsy gave up on trying to fall asleep in a strange new place, getting up to wander about the house instead. The air was bitingly chilly. He was used to light pollution and the pristine gleam of numerous charging electronics, though. The near total darkness of the house, not at all helped by the rivalled darkness outdoors, was disorienting, and he stumbled more than a few times trying to feel his way along the walls.

After managing not break his neck on the stairs, Eggsy found a light switch that cast a warm incandescent glow over the kitchen and nearly jumped out of his skin to find Harry sitting at the table, upright and very, very still.

At Eggsy’s clumsy approach, Harry turned his head sharply. “Good evening, Mr Unwin.”

“You can call me Eggsy too, you know,” Eggsy said, rubbing the back of his neck as he remained in the doorway. “What are you doing here in the dark?”

“I’m charging,” Harry said. “ _Dark_ is relative. My vision is capable of photosensitivity several thousand times greater than a human’s.”

“Right,” Eggsy said. After a moment of hesitation, he went about what he’d set out to do, namely to put the kettle on and scrounge around for that chamomile he’d seen earlier. Harry watched his every move with avid interest until Eggsy finally turned around and held up an empty mug, feeling only slightly ridiculous. “Care for one?”

“If it’s not too much trouble.”

“It’s no trouble at all.”

While the kettle hissed in the background, Eggsy leaned against the counter and proceeded to study every aspect of the kitchen to ameliorate some of the inevitable awkwardness that was building in the room as fast as the heat of the water. Harry didn’t seem to give a rat’s arse about politeness, though, choosing to blatantly stare at Eggsy.

Finally, Eggsy couldn’t take it anymore. “Is there something wrong?”

Harry tilted his head. “Not that I’m aware of. Is there something you wish to say?”

“It’s just that you keep staring. At me.”

“You’re the newest thing to have arrived in a place that hasn’t changed very much in years. I only wished to study you in more detail.”

“Detail?” Eggsy shifted self-consciously. “Like...what?”

“Your pulse, blood pressure, height, average weight, average number of hair follicles per square centimetre, sweat secretions, pheromones....” Like these things were obvious.

Eggsy tried not to make a face, but probably failed. “Right. Maybe you ought to keep those observations to yourself, yeah?”

“Humans are so disappointingly incurious,” Harry sniffed disdainfully.

"That ain't true. I’m plenty curious about things!” Eggsy said, jaw setting in determination. The problem was that for as much as he was stubborn, he wasn’t the best decision-maker under pressure. His desperately flailing mind settled on the first thing that came to it, which just so happened to be a tall, handsome Scotsman. “Like, okay, the caretaker, then. What’s his deal? How long has Hamish worked here for?”

“Mr Douglas has worked here for as long as the land has been in the possession of its current owner, almost fifteen years now,” Harry dutifully answered.

Eggsy raises his brows. “That’s...a long time to be in one place. Especially out here.”

Harry arched a brow. “He’s very dedicated to his purpose here.”

Eggsy lifted his hands. “That weren’t an insult. It’s actually...nice.” With the ice now broken, Eggsy found the questions coming much easier. “What about you? How long have you been, er, alive?”

“I’ve been when with Merlin since he was eight-years-old, one way or another.”

“Eight? Christ.” When Eggsy was eight years old, he was wondering if the little worlds depicted in his father’s snow globes were real.

The kettle came to a boil, thankfully giving Eggsy something to do other than feel remarkably stupid. He poured out two steaming mugs and brought them to the table, setting one down for Harry before taking the seat opposite him. “There you are.”

Harry picked up his mug and seemed content to merely hold it up to his face in intense study. Eggsy started to understand what Hamish meant, but instead of being annoyed at the waste, he found the habit rather amusing.

His own stiff, cold fingers encircled his mug to soak up some of its heat. “It’s chamomile.”

“I am aware. You over-boiled the water and scalded the taste and aroma right out of your cup.”

Eggsy just shrugged. He couldn’t even be offended. He was more the Builder’s sort anyway.

Harry gently placed his cup back on the table. “I take it you’re having trouble sleeping.”

“Never do on the first night. Used to a lot more noise. Light. All this quiet,” Eggsy waved a hand around vaguely to encompass the sweeping breadth of it, “makes the thoughts in my head seem louder.”

“We can order you a white noise generator,” Harry kindly offered.

Eggsy shook his head. “I’ll get used to it. It’s just different, is all. Spent my whole life in London. This is the furthest out I’ve ever got.”

“I see. Well, what do you think so far? Creepy bots, and all?”

Eggsy winced. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I got a big mouth and...well, turns out you’re a lot different than I thought. Not what I expected. None of this was. Takes some getting used to, but I was looking for a change and I got exactly what I wanted, so….”

“Be careful what you wish for?”

Eggsy smiled ruefully. “Guess that one remains to be seen.”

After that, there was an extended bout of surprisingly companionable silence, Eggsy sipping on his tea and smothering his grimaces so as not to give Harry even more smug self-satisfaction, and Harry continuing to study his own cuppa and charge.

Finally, Eggsy worked up the nerve to ask a question that had been on his mind ever since he set foot in this place. “Am I ever gonna meet him? Merlin, I mean?”

Harry lifted his gaze from his mug to Eggsy, visibly puzzled.

“Yeah, yeah,” he waved off before Harry could go in with another biting retort. “Don’t ask silly questions, nevermind then.”

 

_____

 

Dawn seemed to unspool later up here, the sky slowly brightening by inches, gradually bringing the world into clear, sharp focus. Morning mist rose off the grass and lent a smoky scent to the air. Creatures began to stir, the sheep dispersing from each other like dandelion seeds where they had huddled together in fluffy clumps during the night to go wandering wherever their stomachs would take them.

After very little sleep, Eggsy was exhausted and wiry-eyed, because even though he totally fucked up his first impressions as per usual, he was determined to at least make good on his second one by proving he was competent at his job if not his interpersonal skills.

Such as it was, all morning and well into the afternoon was spent poring over the trove of medical records that existed on the office’s servers. Every animal had been tagged and prioritised according to needs. Most were hale and hearty, but there were still a few Eggsy would have to keep an eye out for, especially with the lambing season coming up.

After another hour of establishing a schedule for himself, which incorporated everything from inoculation periods to when the sheep needed to be sheared, Eggsy finally emerged, blinking owlishly, into a sunset settling over the rolling hills.

For a moment, he was bowled over by the sheer expansive beauty of it: the vivid colours he would never find in any art store, the wide, open stretch of endless green and craggy peaks that made him feel comfortingly small, like he could unwind all his thoughts and there would still be plenty of room here to contain them all.

A moving speck of a figure finally captured his attention, gathering details as it drew closer, and finally manifesting itself into the tall, lanky form of Hamish, accompanied by a sprightly and clearly very pregnant border collie. However, as soon as she spotted Eggsy, she broke from Hamish’s side and trotted up to him, tail wagging furiously.

“Why hullo, who’s this pretty girl?” Eggsy said, crouching down to give the dog all the pets and scritches in the world.

“This one’s Sadie,” Hamish said as he approached, reaching down to add his own hands to the mix, much to Sadie’s utter bliss. Eggsy could smell the heady scent of earth and damp on him, trying not to make it too obvious he was taking a big ol’ whiff in the first place. “We breed herding dogs here for our neighbours. It’s your job now to see Sadie safely through her pregnancy.”

“It would be an honour and a pleasure,” Eggsy sincerely said, grinning widely, and not just because Sadie made for a nice change from cattle. He always did have a soft spot for dogs.

The levity of the moment gradually tapered into a more sober atmosphere as Hamish canted his head, features taking on a more contemplative. “How’s day two?”

“Yeah, good. Better.” Eggsy tried very hard not to flush, though he suspected the chilly air would have masked it well enough anyway. Still, he took a deep breath and just came out with it. “Look, I just want to apologise for what I said yesterday. It weren’t my place to go talking shit about the very man who’s putting food in my mouth. I acted like a wanker.”

“Perhaps. But you were honest. It’s a well-appreciated quality here,” Hamish said. “I promise you I wasn’t offended.”

Eggsy carefully scrutinised his face to see if there was any insincerity to be found, but Hamish just gazed steadily back at him long enough for Eggsy to avert his eyes for an entirely different reason. Instead, he returned all his attention back to lovely Sadie, who had eyes the colour of sea glass beneath salt and pepper brows, and who gazed back up at him with a transparently adoring expression that immediately rendered his heart into a small puddle within his chest. Not that it was particularly hard to do, considering its already soggy state. “Well, let’s say you and I have ourselves a checkup to see where we are?”

He turned to go, gently guiding Sadie along, who seemed content to follow him anywhere now.

“Eggsy.”

When Eggsy looked up, Hamish was already walking down the mud and gravel path that led to the greater fields surrounding the loose crop of barns and stables, long legs easily swinging out in front of him. He glanced over his shoulder. “Not all bad, is it?”

“Nah, not so bad at all.”

Even from a distance, he could see Hamish’s small smile curving at the corners of his mouth.


	2. Chapter 2

Whilst spending his days seeing to the health and general welfare of hundreds of sheep, and a few goats, cows, and ponies was a rather different affair from the adorable kittens and dogs Eggsy fantasised about when he first decided to go into veterinary medicine, the job itself was, to his surprise, rewarding.

It was hard work, of course, which provided its own kind of fulfillment. There was a lot of ground—and animals—to cover. Literally. The animals were allowed to roam freely, no fence or border out to contain them, which meant the livestock often comingled with those of neighbouring estates.

“You don’t mark your sheep like other farms,” Eggsy once noted as he watched Hamish set about to slathering on an obnoxiously bright blue ring of paint around a loudly protesting ram’s thick neck and chest.

“We don’t,” Hamish said, keeping a firm, steady hand on the bucking animal, which was doing all sorts of things for Eggsy’s private fantasy fodder. “We insist on chipping each one. Easier to track from afar. Presents no argument about ownership with other farmers.”

“Then why are you, er, painting that one?” Eggsy nodded at the ram.

A sly gleam sparked in Hamish’s eyes. “So we can tell which lasses our lad here has had a bit of fun with when I let him out to sow his oats.”

Eggsy blinked, uncomprehending.

Hamish patiently explained, “After our boy here has his special moment with a ewe, she’ll have a little colourful souvenir of their time together on her back. We’ll know she’s been bred and can keep watch for a pregnancy.”

“Ah.”

Hamish smirked and sent the ram out to pasture with a smack to its hindquarters. The creature strutted forward, a very busy day ahead of him with pastures to consume and ewes to woo.

Eggsy spent his days walking across the vast swaths of land that constituted Merlin’s property to see to his patients, grateful for Merlin’s GPS tracking system that made locating and checking off every sheep easier (if not exactly effortless). He made note of which ewes had been mated and which wandering sheep belonged to the neighbouring estates as determined by the splotches of paint on their upper backs and rumps, respectively, breathing in the fresh air, and generally getting to marvel in the natural beauty of this world.

Suffice to say, things could have been worse.

For example, Tilde’s deal didn’t appear to be going so well if her grim expression and her immediate interrogation of the whisky selection the little pub nearest to Merlin's farm had on hand were anything to go by.

Eggsy raised his brows as Tilde preceded to order an entire bottle of Glengoyne, waving away the accompanying glasses the barmaid was trying to give her. “I take it I don’t need to ask how business is.”

Roxy grimaced. “Turns out, Merlin’s more possessive of his land than we originally thought. Says he likes his privacy, and doesn’t want to encourage more _popped collar English prigs_ from invading his nation.”

Eggsy’s brows rose nearly to his hairline. “Wow. Tell us how he really feels.”

“Not that Tilde’s given up, mind,” Roxy said. “She’s trying to persuade him that aligning himself with vikings is also a good way of sticking it to the red coats. And failing that, she has connections to ease Scotland’s entry back into the EU once it’s granted its independence, which is admittedly a more successful tactic.”

“Oh god. Politics is _your_ thing, Rox, not mine. Can we at least turn the conversation onto other things before you start up another Jacobite Rebellion? Please?”

“Alright,” Roxy conceded, giving his hand a little apologetic pat. “Let’s talk about you.”

“I changed my mind. Let’s go back to the EU thing.”

“How’s it been?” Roxy asked, heedless of Eggsy’s protests. “Have you been getting on? Have you met your employer? Maybe you can talk to him for us! How’s that sexy groundskeeper? And the, what was it, the robot butler?”

“Jesus, Rox. Can you just…” Eggsy glanced around him in paranoia. “It’s not such a big place round these parts. People know who I am and know who you’re talking about, so keep your voice down!”

“Oh, excuse me,” Roxy said, mock contrite. “I hadn’t realised I’d also signed an NDA in having lunch with you. Besides, I thought you said Merlin is never even around. What does he care what the locals think? He’s probably the subject of gossip ninety percent of the time anyway.”

“No need adding more fuel to that fire, then,” Eggsy said. “ _I’ve_ still got to live here. And Hamish. And Harry.”

“Ooh, it’s Hamish now, is it?” An alarming gleam of interest flared in Roxy’s eyes, and Eggsy knew he should’ve just kept his big mouth shut. Again. “On a first name basis already?”

“There’s nothing meant by it,” Eggsy hissed, probably more forcefully than he should have done. “We’re the only beings with self-consciousness on the grounds. Would be a bit weird if we stayed formal with each other.”

“Sounds like the beginning of a porn film, if you ask me.”

“Fuck’s sake, Rox.”

“All kinds of porn, what with all them sheep about.”

“You’ve a nasty little mind.”

Roxy grinned as she lifted her wine glass. “I’ve got to find something to entertain me here. Sure, the view’s pretty, but that’s about all there is. I’ve destroyed Tilde’s Netflix recommendations with B-level lesbian films, and frankly, if I see another nine-minute, soft-focus sequence of two girls just sucking each other’s faces off without at least some fingerbanging, I’m going to scream.”

Eggsy slunk lower and and lower in his chair, face permanently red by now, surely. “You’re doing this to embarrass me.”

“Well, we can’t talk about politics and we can’t gossip about your burly Scotsman, we’re swiftly running through my lists of interests here, Eggsy.”

“I’ve half a mind to talk to Merlin myself to help push this deal through if it means you’ll go away sooner.”

Roxy beamed. “That would please Tilde enough to offer you sexual favours. Oh, remember that time we all got pissed and you let Tilde fu— _fuck_ , Eggsy! What the fuck was that for?” She abruptly stood up to get out of the way of the rest of Eggsy’s spilt pint, grabbing at napkins to blot at her now sodden lap.

“Sorry,” Eggsy said, perfecting his innocent expression. “My hand slipped.”

“Wasting perfectly good booze is a crime.” Roxy glared at him. “They hang you for that here, you know.”

But all in all, he was, to his immense surprise, finding himself enjoying his days, long and exhausting as they were.

He always came home at least halfway soaked through and shivering, though, and must have made for a miserable sight, because Harry started greeting him at the door with a piping hot cup of tea. Perfectly brewed, of course.

“Well,” Harry sniffed when Eggsy profusely thanked him, “I’d hate for you to come down with something and be forced to play nursemaid. Human mucus is one of your more grotesque emissions.”

One day, Harry dropped a pair of new, squeaky clean dark blue wellies on the table in front of him, almost upsetting the contents of his supper. “Here, courtesy of your employer. Your trainers are caked through with mud and beyond saving, and they were completely inappropriate to begin with.”

“Merlin?” Eggsy asked in confusion, picking up one of the boots. His size. “But he isn’t even here! How did he know?”

Harry arched a brow. “Just because he’s not always here doesn’t mean he isn’t always keeping an eye on things.”

Well, that wasn’t unsettling or anything. “Er….”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. It’s not like he has hidden cameras set up in your room or the loo to watch you shower.”

“But he does have cameras?” Eggsy accused, not at all comforted. In fact, the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind until, of course, Harry brought it up.

“Of course,” Harry said, flabbergasted, like it was mad to entertain any other possibility. “He works on billion-pound projects at this facility. One can’t be too careful.”

Put like that, it made sense well enough, but Eggsy didn’t have to like it. Already his skin began to prickle with the thought of being watched. He covertly glanced around the room, but didn’t see anything overtly lens-like in nature. But then, that was the whole point, wasn’t it?

Eggsy sat back, trying and probably failing to appear casual. “So, did he...like...say anything about me?”

“He noted your trainers were in need of replacing,” Harry said, either not getting the point or, what was more likely, choosing to ignore it.

“Yeah, got that, thanks,” Eggsy said, scowling. “I meant...how I’ve been doing on the job. Is he happy with my work? Does he regret not building that bot after all?”

Harry paused in deep thought before replying, “...well, he hasn’t sacked you.”

Eggsy scratched his scarred brow, which transformed into a circular massage of his temple. He didn’t know why he even bothered. “Thanks. That ringing endorsement is really heart warming.”

“I’m sorry, but when you first arrived, you gave me the distinct impression you wanted as little to do with your erstwhile employer as possible. I wouldn’t think you cared overmuch as to what he thought beyond keeping your employment, which he has done.”

“It’s not that I don’t _care_. Of course I care. Everyone wants to be liked and accepted. As an employee, I’d like to know if I was doing a good job. It is my first one, after all, and I’d like to not fuck it up like everything else I...” Realising what he was about to admit, Eggsy snapped his mouth shut right quick.

Something hard and firm in Harry’s face softened a bit, making him look more human than ever. “Merlin’s a very exacting person with high standards. If he didn’t approve of the job you were doing, he would have let you know long before now, and in very clear terms. I think we can conclude you’re doing just fine.”

It does comfort Eggsy some to hear it, better still that Harry doesn’t remark upon his stupid, obvious slip. “Thanks, Harry.”

“For what?” Harry brushed off. “I’m only stating facts.”

It makes Eggsy smile. “Well, thanks anyway, then.”

“Hmmph,” was Harry’s only response as he pretended to take a sip of his tea.

 

_____

 

Sadie was a young, healthy dog, and her pregnancy was going about as smoothly as Eggsy could tell. Her heart and lungs were strong. Stomach and bowels in good working order. She was a good weight thanks to a hearty diet and an equally active lifestyle. Six embryonic sacs that he could see on the ultrasound, a good litter. For as energetic as she was bounding up onto and off the exam table, she remained perfectly still and calm for her actual examination, though. Eggsy was already a little bit in love with her.

“Clean bill of health. She’s about due soon,” Eggsy dutifully reported to her master. “Have you got a comfortable place for her labour?”

“She usually likes this nice warm corner in the back of the east stables,” Hamish said. “I can show you if you like.”

“I trust you. You’ve been through this before and probably know more than I at this point. But point it out to me so I know where to go when the time comes?”

It was a bit of a walk, considering the size of the grounds, but there wasn’t much of a rush in their leisurely gait through the mud and grass, Eggsy found. Even heavily pregnant as she was, Sadie still trotted on ahead of them until she was just a shaggy speck in the distance, only to have to retrace her steps back to them and glare impatiently.

“Your ram certainly gets around,” Eggsy said after mentally stumbling around for a conversation topic. “I think I counted about sixteen different marked ewes on yesterday’s walk alone. And not all of them were ours.”

“Ah, Charlie.” Hamish smirks. “He’s a Casanova, that’s for sure. We've an agreement with the neighbours to help them out a bit with breeding. We’ve got a few others. Digby. Rufus. Not quite as prolific as Charlie, though.”

 _Charlie, the randy ram_ , Eggsy thought, snorting. “How many new lambs do you typically see each season?”

“Sometimes upwards of over two hundred. You’ll be quite busy, I should think.”

“Yeah.” It never failed to steal his breath thinking about the sheer number of domestic animals under his care, a number that was about to dramatically leap higher in a few months.

Hamish must have the eyes of a hawk, because he immediately spotted Eggsy’s brief slip in expression. “Harry tells me you’re not sure how you’re getting on here.”

“Harry’s a bit too gossipy for a fucking bot.”

“That he is,” Hamish agreed. “From what I can see, you’re doing well. The flocks are in good health. Sadie’s happy. It’s good enough for me.”

It cheered Eggsy far more than it probably ought to have to hear it, ducking his head to mutter a softly pleased, “Thanks.”

A lapse of silence fell between them, before Hamish asked, “Why did you want to become a veterinarian in this day and age anyway? Certainly not for the money, fame, or glory, eh?”

“Dunno.” At first, Eggsy shrugged, but then when Hamish kept looking at him expectantly, he was forced to admit, “Animals are more honest than humans, right? More generous too. Guess I prefer it.”

“You don’t much strike me as a misanthropic, ‘can only identify with animals’ type.”

“Well, no, but...I’ve had my fair share of dealings with less savoury human beings. And, well, you know. Wasn’t much of one myself in my teens.” And at Hamish’s curious glance, he knew he had to elaborate. It was embarrassing owning up to his past. It always was. But as difficult as it was to get the words out, Eggsy always made it a point to be candid. It was a part of who he was. It’s shaped him. Besides, Merlin still hired him anyway. “I’ve got a criminal record as long as your arm. And that was after I was considered an adult. Nothing terrible. Or too terrible. Just...young, rebellious shit that a very angry boy does when his stepfather’s involved in drugs and theft and the like. But that’s over now, I can assure you. I’ve changed.”

“I believe you,” Hamish assured him, which did much in easing something Eggsy didn’t even know he was holding his breath over. “Your actions over the past few weeks have told me all I need to know.”

“Good, I hope.”

“All good. You’ve the soul of a caretaker. A protector. You’re gentle. Others’ welfare is of deep importance to you.”

The praise left an over-hot, fluttery feeling in its wake. Eggsy’s body may have swayed a bit too precariously into Hamish, but if asked, he’d say it was from the uneven ground. “All of which Merlin had to know. My past, I mean. Hell of a gamble. Any human, really.”

“You know,” Hamish said, “studies show that animals react far more positively to humans than robots. They’re less stressed and respond better to actual human touch and words. They recover from injury and illness faster when treated by a human. Even one with a criminal record.”

“Is that why Merlin wanted a human vet?”

“Could be,” Hamish said. “Not everything is a job for a bot, despite what legislators and doomsayers would have you believe.”

“Yeah, well. Tell that to companies. Not that they valued people much before this, mind.”

His bitter musings were thankfully interrupted by their approach to the very last stable at the end of the barn. It was swathed in shadows, but its position next to the heater made it warm and dry, and its relative emptiness also made it clear it wasn’t actively in use by any of the other livestock. A tall pile of blankets was stacked in the corner in preparation, probably by Hamish.

“This should be it,” Hamish said unnecessarily, indicating the setup with his hand. “The stable door can be shut. It’s pretty quiet most of the time.”

Eggsy stepped into the stable and made a cursory inspection. “Looks as good a place as any. You say she’s given birth here before?”

“Aye. Every time without fail,” Hamish confirmed. “I set up the blankets when it looks to be going in that direction.”

“Then clearly there’s something about this place she likes. Who am I to say differently?” As if to underscore the point, Sadie trotted in and proprietarily sniffed at her surroundings like she were checking the place for leaks and inspecting the walls for cracks.

“Well, that should be that then,” Hamish nodded. “Care for a drink back at the office?”

“What, mid-work day?” Eggsy asked, only half-scandalised.

“It’s Scotland. It’s what we do.”

Hamish had an office in the same building, as modern and fully outfitted as Eggsy’s. But unlike Eggsy’s rather sterile clinician-like surfaces, Hamish opted for a more cosy, rustic touch with tartan wall hangings, ratty old furniture that looked sinfully comfortable, split-spined trashy paperbacks lining the shelves, and a sizable collection of single malts. Though it was only the afternoon, already the sky was starting to dim into evening, and it was dark enough to force Hamish to turn on the desk lamp.

“Now,” Hamish began, taking on an amusingly professorial tone as he examined each bottle with the care and seriousness of a museum worker. “I typically prefer a good Islay whisky, but regional pride and all. Still, a good Talisker should do nicely. What do you prefer, Eggsy?”

Eggsy scratched the back of his neck. “I admittedly have only gone for Irish whisky in the past.”

The look of disappointment on Hamish’s face. “Break my heart.”

“I’m just young and ignorant!” Eggsy claimed, abasing himself. “I’m willing to learn!”

This, at least, appeared to have mollified Hamish some. He pours out two glasses neat and hands one of them over. Just bringing the glass up to his nose made Eggsy’s eyes water.

“Slàinte Mhath,” Hamish said, lifting his glass towards Eggsy before taking a sip.

Eggsy mirrored the gesture and, somewhat more clumsily, the Gaelic, whilst trying not to flinch at the first hit of astringent, burning, smoky whisky on his tongue. It seared his throat all the way down, forcing him to open his mouth to suck in cool air, and then set fire in his belly, but leaving a rather pleasantly warm glow in its wake. The second swallow went down far easier.

“A league above that Irish piss, no?” Hamish remarked with a pointedly lifted brow, and Eggsy had the good sense not to disagree. “Come, sit down.”

The end of the couch was as comfortable as Eggsy suspected it would be. Easy to simply relax his spine into the gentle curve of the cushions and sink back and cradle his glass to his chest, warmed to the bone. “To be fair, I don’t really have a sophisticated palate.”

The admission made Hamish smile. “You can always learn.”

Eggsy nodded. “Which I seem to be doing in spades around here.”

“You have questions about me, I gather,” Hamish said, and just like that, Eggsy felt on edge again. That nervous, jittery tension.

“Who said that?”

“Harry.”

Of course. That bot was worse than the old ladies back at the estate. Eggsy took a deep breath. “You’re not actually from around here. Not with that accent.”

“No,” Hamish agreed. “My mother was a Weegie. My father was Italian, actually. We moved around quite a bit when I was young, all through Scotland, England and Europe. Eventually settled down in Stirling long enough to call it home.”

“Douglas ain’t a very Italian name last time I reckoned.”

“I’d rather honour the parent who gave a shit about me.”

Fair enough, that. “So why come all the way up here? Why a farm?”

“It’s good, honest work,” Hamish answered, echoing Eggsy’s own earlier words. “Tires the brain out.”

“Thoughts usually keep you up at night?”

“Something like that,” Hamish said vaguely. It invited a whole other line of inquiry, but something about his expression made Eggsy hold his tongue. Not a conversation to have in the first go around, it seemed to say, but soon. _Soon_. “Will you go home for the holidays?”

Eggsy blinked, caught wrong footed. He opened his mouth, but no words wanted to emerge, instilling a brief instance of panic. Worse still, his hesitation only grew Hamish’s curiosity. After another fortifying swallow his drink, he was finally able to reply, “Ah, no. I don’t think so.”

“Everything alright?” Hamish inquired.

“Yeah,” Eggsy said quickly, eyes reverting to the amber coloured liquid in his hand. “Yeah. Just. Well. Home’s not a very...good place for me anymore.”

“I see,” Hamish said, backing off. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Just like him to make things awkward, wasn’t it? “Anyway, I’ve always wanted to know what a Scottish winter looks like.”

“You’ll get plenty of that soon enough,” Hamish said with a wry cant to his head. “More than you could possibly hope to want.”

“Will you be visiting family for the holidays?”

“No. My mother isn’t alive anymore. My closest relations, which aren’t very, and on my father’s side, reside in Capetown now, and I’ve no siblings. Besides, there’s plenty enough to be doing right here at any given time. You ever try to find a lost sheep in the fucking snow?”

Eggsy laughed. He could feel the heat of the whisky in his cheeks now, and even Hamish had a warmer flush to his face and a brighter, hazy gleam in his eyes. “Looks like we’ll be spending the holidays up here together then. With Harry, of course.”

Hamish smiled again, like he was genuinely pleased. “You’ll have the honour of tasting Harry’s whisky cake. It’s a point of pride. I believe he goes through at least one bottle in its making.”

“Then it’ll be Christmas with more than a bit of good cheer.” Eggsy lifted his glass towards Hamish, who met him in the middle with his own in a satisfying mutual clink.

 

_____

 

It happened when Harry took him to the closest crop of shops and pubs that considered itself a town to do some Christmas shopping. At first, Eggsy’s thoughts were consumed with what he would get for his Mum and Daisy now that he had some actual money in the bank. Maybe some fine quality knitwear he’d seen or one of the many adorable plush farm animals stacked in appealing piles in the window displays.

Gradually, though, he became aware of the less than warm atmosphere around them, specifically stemming from a group of large, rough looking men across the road who were giving eyeing them up with sneers on their faces before turning to each other and muttering. Their voices carried a bit, rough, unintelligible syllables that Eggsy couldn’t understand.

The hairs on the back of his neck rose, his honed sense of danger still sharp, even after a few years. “What do you reckon they’re on about?” he muttered to Harry whilst trying to sneak in more glances at their disagreeable audience.

Harry didn’t even look up from his apparently serious contemplation of a dainty tea kettle for sale. “It’s not you they mind. It’s me.”

Eggsy stared at him, askance. “You? Why?”

“They know what I am,” Harry explained without much concern in his tone. “As much as I pass for human most of the time, word gets around eventually, especially in such a small town as this.”

“They really don’t like bots up here, do they?” Sure, it was considered common knowledge, but he always assumed it to be in the manner of other cultural stereotypes and cliches, not the frosty reception to which they were being subjected.

“Considering most of Scotland’s major industries have almost been completely taken over by machines, their antipathy is understandable. The country’s unemployment rate far outstrips England’s.”

“Maybe we should go,” Eggsy suggested, unable to keep a note of nervousness from his tone. The men appeared in no hurry to disperse, if anything quite the opposite: they drew closer together, shoulders growing more tense like coils ready to spring into action. Experience told him whatever action that was, it wouldn’t be good.

“Nonsense,” Harry dismissed. “We’ve hardly even begun to do what we set out here for. Pay them no mind and go about your business.”

Harry proceeded to demonstrate his indifference by maintaining his casual survey of the shop windows they passed, and so Eggsy had little choice but to follow suit. However, much of the joy and anticipation he’d previously harboured had dissipated. It was difficult to concentrate when one had to constantly glance over one’s shoulder. And for all the lack of concern Harry’s words may have indicated, there was an unhappy expression growing on his face all the same, his usually fluid and graceful movements becoming more rigid.

Finally after twenty minutes of half-hearted browsing, Eggsy turned to Harry and said, “Nothing really jumps out of me. I don’t think we’ll find anything more here today.”

It was telling when Harry didn’t protest. By mutual unspoken agreement, they started back towards the car.

But as they turned the corner to where their vehicle was parked, the men were there: two leaning against the sides of the car whilst the other three stood in a loose semi-circle front guard.

The meanest looking of the lot, a rodent-faced bloke with a long, rangy body, stepped forward as soon as they were spotted. “I’ve never seen your face before,” he said, looking at Eggsy, “so maybe you don’t know the rules, but the likes of _it_ ,” accompanied by a nod to Harry, “aren’t welcome here.”

From the corner of his eye, Eggsy could just make out the way Harry’s fist clenched at his side—a very human gesture, he thought with no small amount of bittersweet irony. “Look, we ain’t looking for trouble. We just wanna go home. We won’t be bothering you no more.”

“I beg to differ, Eggsy,” Harry said, much to Eggsy’s consternation. “This is a public space and is therefore free for use by anyone who so chooses to use it.”

“You,” the man spat at Harry, “aren’t people. You’re a fucking pile of metal parts. You know what we do to your kind round here?”

“I don’t, but I’m sure you’ll proceed to describe something uncivilised and rife with sexual deviancy,” Harry replied.

“Harry, you _ain’t_ helping!” Eggsy hissed at him.

“You think you’re so fucking smart, do you? What the fuck kind of bot you supposed to be anyway?” the man sneered, stepping forward threateningly and eyeing Harry’s posh clothes with disdain.

Harry didn’t back down. He had a good ten centimetres on the man, and had no problem making an exaggerated show of tipping his head to look down his nose at such a pathetic human to say, “One who is more evolved than you.”

“Oh, fuck me—” Eggsy said under his breath.

Several things happened at once:

The man leapt at Harry, arm winding back, hand bunched into a fist.

Harry, living up to his own words, moved inhumanly fast, precisely stepping back just far enough to avoid the incoming swing in his direction.

Eggsy, who wasn’t quite so inhuman and a foolish idiot on top of it all, was not so lucky, having chosen that precise moment to throw himself at Harry in perhaps some notion of chivalry.

The man’s fist caught him square in the nose. Eggsy could both hear and feel the cartilage snap. A bright halo of pain reverberated through his sinus cavities. His head whipped back forcefully enough to send him off his feet, saved from being knocked flat on his back only by Harry’s immovable stance.

Except that it was his head that hit Harry’s body first, and Harry’s body was not like a human’s body: it was as hard as steel. Or possibly something harder.

The ground probably would have made for a softer landing, Eggsy would have vaguely thought had not a curtain of sudden and overwhelming darkness been pulled over his consciousness like the end of an act.

He thought maybe he heard Harry say, “... _Shit_ ,” before all the lights went out.

 

_____

 

Everything became a lot more hazy. Eggsy found himself unable to focus on any one thing for long, thoughts surfacing like bubbles in his head only to pop and disappear entirely. There was a vague sense of moving, and boy did that do a number on his stomach.

The next thing he knew, he was sicking up on his shoes. The nice wellies. Well, they were once nice. Not so much anymore. Fortunately vomit probably washed as easily off them as mud. The carpet beneath them probably not so much.

He lost track of time after that startlingly clear and unpleasant moment, only aware of wads of Kleenex stuffed up his nose, the taste of metal cloying in his throat, and the painful pressure in his head that seemed to throb in time with the ache radiating from the centre of his face,.

There were blurry faces hovering before him.

“There's nothing for it; that nose will have to be reset.”

“You could leave it as is. A crooked nose would go very well with the scar on his brow. A delightful amount of roguish character, if you ask me.”

“No, Harry. That's really not how it works.”

“It would make him appear more dangerous. And clearly, he needs every advantage he can get if this was how he typically acquits himself in minor brawls.”

“What?” Eggsy asked nasally.

One of the foggy faces cleared up into the handsome visage of Hamish. Lovely. “Well, lad, I won’t lie to you: this is going to hurt.” That wasn’t so lovely.

Before Eggsy could reply, Hamish gently took his chin in one giant paw of a hand. Really, Hamish had such lovely, big hands. They made Eggsy feel like a small, calmed bird nestled in his warm, calloused palm.

Then Hamish covered Eggsy’s whole nose with his other hand, pinched the bridge between his index and thumb, and wrenched the cartilage back into place.

“Ow!” The pain was sudden and acute, sparking tears in Eggsy eyes and an almost itchy agony shooting throughout his face. He reflexively tried to scrunch up his face, but that only made everything hurt all over again. “Shit!”

“Keep it in place with a bit of medical tape,” Hamish said, narrating his actions as he gingerly pressed his fingers down to seal the tape to the bridge of Eggsy’s newly reset nose. “You’ll be a sorry looking sight for a while, I’m afraid.”

“Did I at least win?” Eggsy asked.

“You were victorious,” Harry told him, because Harry was most definitely the other fuzzy face, his glasses a distinct dark outline. But before Eggsy could take heart from that, he continued, “for the other side.”

The upside to all this was that he was a bit too wool-brained to worry about what probably would have been utter mortification. “My head hurts.” 

“Minor concussion,” Hamish explained. “Ginger—a physician round these parts—stopped by earlier, but you probably don’t remember. The only thing for it is rest.”

“I’m sorry,” he said miserably. “I didn’t mean to get into trouble again.”

“Despite what Harry says, I think you did something very brave. It certainly wasn’t your fault,” Hamish assured before gently dislodging the tissues from Eggsy’s nose. “No more bleeding. Means you can lie back and sleep.”

Air comes rushing in freely through his nostrils, though it stings the over-sensitised nerves that had taken a beating earlier in his sinus cavities. He could still feel the crusty rings of dried blood in his nose, which wasn’t at all pleasant, but he was too tired and in too much pain to do much about it.

“Back you go,” Hamish said, gently coaxing him down with his big hands like a sculptor molding clay.

It was only then Eggsy realised he had been sitting on his own bed this whole time, and then Harry and Hamish were squeezed in his bedroom together with him. Not that there was anything incriminating lying about, quite the opposite in fact: he’d barely unpacked.

He winced when his head hit the pillow, but then relaxed when it felt imminently better not to have to hold it up anymore. He’d been fighting against the heavy tide of drowsiness this whole time, and something gave way at last, making it harder to keep his eyes open. On the precipice of sleep, however, he made one last grasp for wakefulness, starting to sit up again. “But the animals—”

“—will be fine,” Hamish finished, placing a firm hand against his sternum to keep him down. “Just get some rest. Get better. We can’t have you down for too long. We need you too much.”

 _We_. It made Eggsy smile dosily. “Okay.”

As he let himself fall back into the dark drifts of unconsciousness, Hamish’s hand still remained warm upon his chest, a heavy, comforting weight.

 

_____

 

Eggsy felt like he had been asleep for mere minutes before someone was gently shaking him awake. “Fuck off, Rox.”

“Eggsy.” Hamish.

Something in his body must have fine tuned itself to Hamish without his awareness because he struggled to open his eyes before he even knew what he was doing. The room was still dark, which was fortunate because even the scant amount of illumination from the hall proved painful. His whole head throbbed. “What is it?”

Hamish was uncharacteristically hesitant. “I’m sorry to disturb you. I know I said you could rest. You _should_ rest.”

“It’s fine,” he waved away.

“Sadie’s gone into labour.”

“Shit.” Great timing, Sadie.

“I would have just called the country vet like I’ve done previously, but she’s on holiday until next year.”

“Alright.” Eggsy reached up to rub his head before thinking better of it. As soon as his hand made contact with his skull, it set off a riot. He winced and sharply drew his hand back. “It’s likely gonna be fine. Most dogs just do their thing without much assistance from me anyway.”

He said, like he had ever overseen a canine pregnancy before. In some bizarre way, trying to function on a mild concussion was actually a blessing in disguise: he was a bit too foggy-headed to be anxious.

Hamish helped him to stand and remain on his feet when a bout of dizziness overtook him, apologising every few seconds. “If it’s most likely going to be fine, and it always has been in the past, I can just go and watch for myself, and if anything seems amiss, I could come get you then.”

“I’m already up,” Eggsy pointed out. “Help me get dressed.”

No more protests from Hamish as he dutifully pulled open Eggsy’s bag to find him suitable clothes that would buffer him against the cold, then helped him into a thick jumper and socks to accompany his cotton pyjama bottoms and uni t-shirt. It probably should have been a sexier scenario than it was if he had half the mind to even think about it. Pity.

It was a matter of pride to walk on his own, even if he had to lean on Hamish for support. Or it was until they approached the top of the stairs and Eggsy’s already fuzzy vision spiralled into vertigo.

“Fuck, I don’t think I can do this without ending up a pile of limbs on the bottom stair,” he admitted, closing his eyes and swallowing back his onset nausea.

“I should get you back to bed—”

“No.” He almost shook his head to emphasise the point, but thankfully some last minute good sense warned him it would be a bad idea in his precarious state.

“Eggsy….”

“It’s my job. Just ‘cos I knock myself out in my own damn fight—”

“It wasn’t _your_ fight,” Hamish argued. “Harry’s big mouth landed you here.”

“I just hate being so….” He clenched his jaw, teeth grinding together.

“No one gets by up here on their own,” Hamish said simply and without another word, he scooped Eggsy up in his arms, bridal style.

The sudden change disoriented Eggsy for several moments, and then he was too busy desperately fighting to keep hold of the contents of his stomach to much protest. Hamish successfully navigated their descent down the stairs stairs and then moved towards the door, in no apparent hurry to put Eggsy down. Not once they were out in the chilly night, not as they moved down the dark, muddy trail towards the stables.

Eggsy sighed and finally gave in, leaning against his broad, warm chest, breathing in the scent of animals, engine grease, and hay. Christ, Hamish was strong. His arms remained firm around Eggsy with nary a sign of wavering. Another visual skipped a stone across the surface of his scattered thoughts: Hamish lugging bleating ewes about in a similar manner. The image made him bark out a sharp laugh.

Hamish glanced at him in concern, but thankfully didn’t ask.

The stables were dark and imbued with a slumbering sort of silence, save for the dim halo of light emanating from a single lamp at the far end towards which Hamish directed them.

“I can walk now, you know,” Eggsy said.

“It’s faster this way.”

Hamish had set up a nest of blankets for Sadie upon which she now lay, panting and looking up at them as they appeared. No pups yet.

“How long has it been?” Eggsy asked.

“About six hours, give or take.”

“You took her temperature?”

“Aye. I know that much. It’s about 36 now.”

“Doesn’t look like her waters have broken, but I should go see—”

“Let me. I’ve troubled you too much already,” Hamish said, gently setting Eggsy down and more or less leaned him against the stable door like a brolly as he crunched across the hay and approached Sadie, giving her head and neck few soothing strokes. “Blankets are dry.”

“Still early yet,” Eggsy decided, closing his eyes to rest them. Just for a minute, he promised himself. “But soon.”

“I can set up a live feed. We can keep watch from the comfort of my office,” Hamish suggested. “You look ready to drop.”

For once, Eggsy didn’t protest. “Sounds like a bloody good idea.”

Hamish placed a hand between Eggsy’s shoulder blades and gently guided him out of the stables to make sure he didn’t run face first into a post, but otherwise letting him move of his own volition. Just as well, the dim lights in the stables were barely tolerable and his headache only seemed to get worse the longer he remained upright.

Somehow, Hamish got Eggsy to his office without incident and ensconced on the couch with a warm wool blanket. “I’d give you a dram,” he said, “but given the current state of your head, I don’t think that would be wise.”

“She should be giving birth inside of twelve hours now,” Eggsy told him, his words starting to slur together with drowsiness. “If not…if something changes....let me know.” In the meantime, Eggsy scooted lower onto the couch and curled his legs up so they could fit fully beneath the blanket.

He was out almost as soon as he closed his eyes.

 

_____

 

Eggsy didn’t know how long it had been before he awoke at some point to find Harry gently tucking a pillow beneath his head.

“Is something wrong?” he muttered sleepily.

“No,” Harry told him as he straightened and then proceeded to set a full glass of water down on the table in front of the couch just within arm’s reach. “You’ve been here for awhile and you’ll be here for awhile yet. I thought you could at least be made more comfortable.”

The pillow was a huge improvement over the cradle of his arms. Eggsy couldn’t help nuzzling into it. “Thanks.”

Eggsy closed his eyes and would have drifted off again, but he felt the heavy weight of a Harry’s stare practically bore another hole into him.

He opened his eyes. Harry’s eyes were dark, his mouth pulled into a tight, grim line. “Alright?”

“Yes,” Harry said.

When he didn’t seem inclined to say anything more, Eggsy tried to rouse his brain into working order. “Some things are starting to come back to me a bit. I knew there were them blokes in town, and they weren’t real keen on us being there. Between knocking myself unconscious and waking up in my bed is a mystery though. What happened? How did we get away? Did you…?” He didn’t want to say it. The possibility of it was too unnerving to voice aloud.

Harry, however, had no such compunctions. “Did I hurt them?” he voiced for Eggsy. “No. For as much freedom as Merlin has programmed me with, he has not given me that, not even in self-defence.”

There was a note of bitterness to his tone, Eggsy observed. “Then what happened?”

“I do move faster than a human being, at least. In all the confusion after your rather surprising fall, I scooped you up, made for the car, and drove us away as fast as I could.”

“But the car was right there. Some of them were still leaning against it.”

“Well,” Harry said, “I may not have been able to defend myself, but the car itself has a few self-defencive measures I could employ to protect Merlin’s property.” At Eggsy’s furrowed brows, he explained, “I simply sent a small current of electricity through the car—no more than what a cattle prod would deliver, mind you—and it _encouraged_ our pursuers to maintain their distance. After that, it was a simple matter of escape, and the path was clear.”

“Holy shit,” was all Eggsy could say. “Thank you for, er, carrying me out with you.”

“There’s no need to thank me,” Harry said, but before Eggsy could protest, he said, eyes blazing with an emotion he shouldn’t have, “I was built to serve others. To do anything and everything they could possibly want or ask for. No one has ever...no one has ever done anything for me. Until you.”

Eggsy was too stunned to say anything at all.

“Thank you,” Harry said, not a drop of his usual irony or sarcasm to be found anywhere in his voice now. “For seeing me as someone worth fighting for.” And then, because he was still Harry: “Even if you fought very badly indeed.”

After a few failed attempts of opening his mouth only to have nothing come out, Eggsy finally swallowed past the painful dryness in this throat. “Anytime, mate. I got your back, yeah? Just...you may want to make sure you got extra back up too, though.”

The smile they shared, two beings, robot and human, finding a shared thread of connection, was warm indeed against a cold, late autumn night.

 

_____

 

After six more excruciatingly long hours of Eggsy being caught between restless snoozing and half-awake consciousness, Sadie gave birth to six healthy, glossy-furred pups without any complications or need of assistance. An old pro at this, she was.

“Everyone is healthy and happy,” Eggsy announced tiredly after a cursory examination of the mother and brood. Four males, two females. “See? Told you it’d be fine.”

This latter, he directed at Hamish, who hovered just within the stable door after replacing Sadie’s soiled blankets with a fresh, clean set. His light censure had little impact on Hamish’s transfixed expression, though, as he gazed upon the new canine family. “That you did. You’d think after all the times Sadie and I have been through this, I’d be less worried about these things.”

“Well, you clearly care for her. As a vet, I can assure you that’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Eggsy said.

“Sadie’s been a good, loyal dog to me for many years.” Hamish gently reached out and stroked Sadie’s head, careful not to jostle the nursing pups. “She’s given birth to many healthy litters and birthed many great herding dogs for our community. But I think this one will be her last.”

“Most breeders would say she had a few more litters in her left,” Eggsy noted. “But I’m more of your opinion myself. We can spay her once she recovers and the pups are weaned.”

“Good, then,” Hamish said, entire expression so wondrously warm and happy, Eggsy wanted nothing more than to be the cause of that light there always. Hamish rose to his feet and brushed the remnants of hay and dried dirt from his jeans. “I think that’s all for tonight. Mother and children should be left in peace. You should try and get some more rest.”

His legs were long, Eggsy couldn’t help but see, gaze lingering upon them, slowly travelling up their length as a sort of visual guide to finally meet Hamish’s eyes. “Feels like all I do is sleep now.”

“Well, you haven’t got much of it this night. Time to remedy that,” said Hamish, reaching forward and holding out a hand for Eggsy. “Up you get.”

Eggsy reached out a hand and found it wholly encased within Hamish’s. It seemed as if Hamish only needed to employ a sliver of his immense strength to pull Eggsy to his feet and then some: Eggsy stumbled in his footing, overbalancing with an acute bout of dizziness and pitching forward into Hamish’s body.

“Woah.” Thankfully, Hamish, solid wall that he was, didn't so much as sway, easily bearing the brunt of Eggsy’s weight and keeping him upright. And for all his rock hard muscled body, he was still a hell of a lot softer than Harry, thick jumper and all. Warmer too. Furnace hot, even. Eggsy was reluctant to move away.

When Eggsy finally looked up again into Hamish’s eyes, he found him, everything, all very close, Hamish’s arm wrapped securely around him, his hand wound through Eggsy’s, caressing. All the same earthy scents were there, familiar and comforting. “Are you alright?” Hamish asked softly.

“Yeah, I….” Eggsy tipped his head back a little. Hamish’s was already angled towards his out of concern, to peer lower from the lofty height his frame gave him, and having a concussion, even a very mild one (“It’s still actually a brain injury," Harry had helpfully informed him, “Your gelatinous brain going _splat_ against the inside of your skull.”), was not unlike being a bit drunk right now, everything soupy and unconstrained, impulses seeming like very good ideas, such as taking advantage of the proximity of their mouths and leaning in and up, slotting their lips together, just a hint of moisture, feeling the prickly bristles of Hamish’s jaw brush against his skin, their noses butting up against each other, just a little, which, alright, hurt a lot, but he was ignoring that bit.

Eggsy didn’t know how long the kiss went on for—a few seconds, lifetimes—but it was Hamish who pulled back first with a stricken expression that was starting to make all of his wilfully pushed-away nausea come flooding back in full force.

“That wasn’t a good idea,” Hamish said quietly.

“Why not?”

“Well…” For a moment, Hamish struggled with what to say, and it was disconcerting to see him so unsettled. “For one thing, you’re quite literally not right in the head.”

“That all?” Eggsy asked. “You think you’re taking advantage?”

“Eggsy….”

“You’re not,” Eggsy insisted. “I’ve wanted to do this long before the knock to the head. From the moment I first saw you.”

Hamish remained speechless, just looking at him.

“Or is it that you don’t feel the same way,” Eggsy said, heart sinking. “And I’ve just embarrassed myself. Again.”

He started to pull away, face hot with the smouldering embers of humiliation, but Hamish just gripped him tighter, kept him in place, stilling his movement. “It’s not that,” Hamish assured him fiercely, reaching up to brush his rough fingers across Eggsy’s jaw with a shaking hand. “I think it’s been a long night. I think you and I need to sleep. I think you need to heal. And then, after all that, perhaps it’s something we can revisit later.”

It wasn’t a no. It wasn’t quite a yes either, but it was something to hold onto. _Later_. Suddenly, what Hamish said made too much sense. Usually Eggsy would consider himself that sensible, not rushing into things. Being cautious. Must have been the concussion, unearthing all his old impulses.

“You’re right,” Eggsy told him, “I’m so sorry, I—”

But Hamish cut him off. “Don’t be.” Usually, Eggsy could find a sort of calm serenity in his gaze, like a talisman of comfort when he needed an anchor. Now, though, there is nothing but forest fire intensity burning in his eyes. “There’s nothing I want more than to take you back to my office and….”

He swallowed and looked away, needing a moment.

“Later,” Eggsy said, like a question.

Once he’s reasserted control, Hamish looks at him again. “Later,” he said, like a promise.


	3. Chapter 3

Eggsy used to like Christmas. Probably, at any rate. Before the age of seven, he assumed. He must have even had some very good childhood memories of that time, even though his family never had any money. But those Christmases were static points in time, and with each passing year, Eggsy slipped further and further away from them: rich, vivid memories became dim recollections that faded into faint impressions. Now, Eggsy didn’t even have those. Just assumptions: at one point in his life, Christmas must have been a happy time.

Naturally, Harry, who either didn’t know or didn’t care about Eggsy’s Grinch-like attitude, proceeded to decorate the main house whilst wearing a Santa hat and blaring obnoxious pop covers of Christmas carols until the end result looked like something a pine forest regurgitated. Eggsy was torn between revelling in the pine scent that infused the air and worrying over whether they were inadvertently housing some furry woodland creature.

“I’ve never seen him so excited for...well, anything, really,” Eggsy remarked as he watched Harry flit about the kitchen in a flour-dusted apron, waving a bottle of whisky around precariously as he mixed up a bowl of cake batter.

Hamish didn’t seem to much mind Harry turning their home into a fire hazard (and at least Harry stopped the forest in a comfortable perimeter around the fireplace), watching his antics with a mixture of amusement, resignation, and fondness in his gaze. “Christmas happens to be his birthday. Explains the God complex, doesn’t it.”

“Really.” He tries not to sound _too_ interested, but another almost absent-minded hint about Merlin had all of Eggsy’s attention. “Like, when he was given, uh, sentience? Or a body? The technology couldn’t have been all that great decades ago.”

“You’re not wrong,” Hamish said wryly. “Harry used to be more or less as a ghost in the walls for several decades. Didn’t even have a voice twenty years ago.”

“Something which I’m sure Merlin regrets ever giving me!” Harry chimed in from the kitchen, letting them know he could hear them both perfectly while he upended a bottle of whisky into his mixing bowl.

“I always wondered...Harry said he was created when Merlin was eight. But as what? Obviously not a servant.”

“No, not a servant,” Hamish confirmed before shrugging. If Eggsy weren’t paying such close attention to Hamish, he’d almost have thought it was a careless gesture. “What does any lonely boy want at that age?”

That hit a little too close to home for Eggsy’s comfort. He looked away from dimmed light in Hamish’s eyes and found a safer middle distance to focus upon as a sudden spike of sadness lanced through him.

But he was an adult now, and all those things were in the past. With that reminder, though, Eggsy knew he had to bite the bullet at some point, so he braced his hands against each arm of the chair he sat in and pushed himself to his feet. “Guess I better ring me mum while it’s still early. Wish her a happy Christmas and all that.”

Hamish opened his mouth to speak, but whatever he originally intended to say, Eggsy would never know, because instead he simply closed his mouth and gave Eggsy a small smile. “Better to do so before you sample Harry’s birthday cake and it puts you under the table.”

Eggsy was torn between relief over the lack of questions and wanting to offer up some sort of explanation, but he knew if he gave in to the latter, he’d end up saying things he’d regret, so he politely ushered himself off to the calm isolation of the library.

It was a small space that had probably been meant for a child’s bedroom, but now housed floor to ceiling shelves of books along all four of its walls. Sadly, Eggsy hadn’t been in this room since the day Harry pointed it out on his initial tour, finding himself with little time and energy after his long work days were done. That would change during winter, he was told. The flocks moved around less, preferring to huddle together in the snowy fields for warmth. He’d be indoors more often than not.

As he pulled out his mobile and listened to the ringing, he gave the shelves a cursory scan. There was a mixture of hard and paperback books, but almost all of them looked well worn and loved. Espionage. Mysteries. Thrillers. Sci-Fi. Titles whose genres he couldn’t determine. Then there were an outsized number of books on computer science, artificial intelligence, robotics, and machine learning, all as well thumbed through as the others.

After idly plucking one such thick tome off the shelf, Eggsy flipped through a few pages starting from the centre and was caught off-guard by the evidence of handwritten notes and formulas interwoven between lines of text and written in the margins next to diagrams. They were a geometric scrawl that was barely comprehensible for all the brilliant concepts and maths they elaborated upon, but the handwriting itself seemed vaguely familiar—

“Hello?”

Eggsy slammed the book shut and readjusted the phone to his ear. “Hi, Mum. It’s, uh, me.”

“Babe.” His mum’s voice was thin and hoarse, but clearly pleased. “Feels like I haven’t heard your voice in forever.”

It wasn’t spoken in condemnation, but Eggsy couldn’t help flinching anyway. “Yeah. I’m sorry I haven’t done sooner. It’s been real busy. But I figured since it’s Christmas and all….”

“I’m so glad you called. I miss you,” his mum said, voice tapering off into a whisper. It made room for background noises to filter in: the telly on too loud, ugly voices shouting.

Eggsy frowned. “Is this a bad time? Is _he_ in?”

“Dean’s just got some mates over for supper. I couldn’t just say no. It’s Christmas, yeah?”

“And last time they was there, they fucking trashed the place,” Eggsy said darkly. “Mum—”

“Eggsy, don’t start.” It was sad and tired. Eggsy could picture his mum rubbing her temple in resignation as she said it.

They’ve argued about it before, many, many times. Eggsy bit his lip. No need to go starting any rows on Christmas. “You get the money I sent you? And the presents?”

“Yeah, they was real nice, babe, thank you. Daisy loves her toys. Sleeps with ‘em. Cries if you try to take it away.”

“Is she talking yet?”

“Not really, no. Points at things. Cries up a storm when she need to.”

“And you didn’t tell Dean about the money?” Eggsy insisted. “Put it away like I asked?”

“Yes, Eggsy,” his mum said, exasperation leaking into her tone. There was a pause, and then she spoke much more quietly. “I know how to open a bank account, you know. Everything’s all paperless too.”

He sighed in relief, and until that moment, hadn’t realised how anxious he’d been over the whole matter. “Good. That’s good.”

There was a lull in the conversation where Eggsy didn’t know what else to say. They didn’t really wish each other a merry Christmas anymore because it hadn’t been as such for either of them for most of Eggsy’s life, but it didn’t feel right simply ignoring everything either. Finally, his mum made the first overture. “Everything going alright up there?”

“Yeah,” Eggsy said. “Everything’s going real well. It’s pretty up here. Think you’d like it. Should come up and visit some time. Daisy would love the animals.”

For a moment, Eggsy thought she’d actually agree. He could practically hear her wanting to say yes. But like a firework, the possibility only flared brief and bright for a few seconds before fading away. “Oh, babe, I dunno. It’s awfully far up. Dean don’t like for me to be gone that long, you know that.”

“Dean ain’t the boss of you,” Eggsy bit out, clenching his teeth to bite back a stream of curses he wanted to accompany his reply with.

“It’s not that simple.”

“Mum, please—”

The shouting in the background increased along with the tinny roar from the telly, a distinctive and hated turn of the phrase, _Michelle, what the fuck are you doing? Get over here!_ cutting through all the din. “I gotta go babe, babe,” his mum said. “You have yourself a good day, alright? Take care of yourself. It was so good of you to call.”

She ended the call before he had a chance to speak again.

 

_____

 

It took longer than he liked to compose himself and return to face his companions, precious minutes to dampen back the spike of fury that tightened his throat and crushing sadness that felt like heavy stones upon his chest. Even then, Eggsy couldn’t be sure if the carefully neutral expression he had cast his face in held up beneath Hamish’s thorough scrutiny.

“How’s the family?” Hamish asked. There was something carefully pitched about the question, like a parent slowly tossing an underhand ball to a child.

“Good, yeah.” It emerged as too quick and thin, the automatic bob of his head too brisk. Eggsy inhaled. The air was a lot heavier and hotter now from both the blazing fire in the hearth and the oven baking Harry’s cake. He forced himself to add, more slowly, “They’re all doing good.”

Hamish waited a beat too long, just enough time to wordlessly let Eggsy know he wasn’t entirely buying it, before speaking. “Come sit down then.”

His entreaty was accompanied by the unfurling of his hand to indicate Eggsy’s pick of unoccupied seats: the chair across from Hamish he occupied before the call, the one adjacent to it, or the long, empty length of the couch Hamish had left beside him.

Eggsy’s head was screwed on better these days. The initial fogginess had cleared up along with most of the light and noise sensitivity and loss of coordination. He still got the occasional migraine, but those would eventually taper off as well.

So, he couldn’t argue he wasn’t perfectly in his right mind when he made the decision to take a seat on the couch next to Hamish. Maybe a little too close. Certainly close enough to feel the heat of Hamish’s thigh seeping into his skin. To catch the faint scent of whatever cologne he’d chosen to wear today when his audience wasn’t solely livestock.

With Eggsy’s proximity, Hamish had to angle his whole body to face him, laying an arm along the back of the couch and drawing Eggsy’s attention to the breadth of his shoulders, the pull of his jumper across his chest. 

“I suppose now’s as good a time as any,” Hamish said, apropos of nothing.

“For what?”

“Your Christmas gift.”

“What? I thought we agreed—” Eggsy started to argue.

Hamish held up a hand. “No purchased gifts for each other, I know. But I can assure you, no money exchanged hands.” He stood up, clearly with a goal to fetch something from the stair cupboard, bringing back a sizable box draped in a blanket and setting it down at Eggsy’s feet.

There was a rustle of movement and a light scratch of cardboard from within, swiftly accompanied by some alarming movements beneath the blanket. When Eggsy warily pulled back the fabric, he found himself staring into the soulful gaze of a border collie puppy who momentarily ceased its attempts at escape to blink back up at him and wag its tail furiously. It had Sadie’s eyes.

“Oh my god.” With a mighty, wriggle of its rump, the puppy finally managed to leap out of its confines and right into Eggsy’s lap, taking advantage of its new freedom to pounce at Eggsy face and lick it furiously. Eggsy couldn’t stop the wide grin from stretching across his face. “I thought you’d sold them all.”

“Not all, as you can see.”

“This is lovely. I love him. Her?”

“Her,” Hamish confirmed.

“Her,” Eggsy repeated, burying his nose in the soft, warm fur and suffering several washes of a tickling pink tongue for his indulgence.

When he chanced a look at Hamish again, his breath caught in his throat. Something indescribably soft lurked in his gaze. Eggsy wanted to speak, ask him what he was thinking, when Hamish beat him to the punch. “Suppose you’ve got to come up with a name now.”

“Suppose I do.” After a few moments of pondering the notion even though he immediately already knew what he wanted, Eggsy finally shyly offered, “JD.”

Hamish’s brows arched high on his forehead. “JD?”

“Yeah.” He couldn’t look at Hamish. “The great Dame herself, Judi Dench?”

Hamish’s surprised laughter was as warm as the fire blazing merrily in the hearth. “Perfect.”

He met Eggsy’s gaze directly, all amusement mingling with a hint of challenge, enough to suddenly set Eggsy’s heart racing. And in spite of the wildly excitable creature in his arms, Eggsy almost impulsively leaned towards him, wanting to—

“Cake’s ready!” Harry announced.

Eggsy reeled himself back in automatically, unsure if he was annoyed by the interruption or relieved at having been abruptly saved from making a fool of himself again. 

“Timely as ever,” Hamish dryly said and reached across Eggsy’s lap to give JD a few fond scritches before she managed to twist free from Eggsy’s grip and happily romped about the room.

Eggsy met Hamish’s gaze ruefully before clearing his throat and adding, “It smells…like I shouldn’t be operating heavy machinery.”

“Nonsense,” Harry replied, narrowly missing tripping over the wandering little beast at his feet to carry over the entire baked concoction and set it down on the coffee table: a rounded brown loaf dotted with bits of fruit and nuts, emanating with fumes that could probably strip wallpaper. “It’s my own recipe. I’ve perfected it after years of trial and error.”

“With the intent to subdue one’s enemy, surely,” Hamish said. And when Harry just sat down in the chair directly next Hamish and stared at him expectantly, he sighed. “Must I?”

“You must.”

“Must what?” Eggsy asked.

Hamish cleared his throat, looking very put out, but then he parted his lips and took a breath and began to sing “Happy Birthday” with surprising sincerity.

Hamish had a nice voice, full and confident despite the initial reluctance. Not perfect by any stretch, but all the little cracks and hitches were humble little warm pockets that Eggsy wanted to curl up in. He couldn’t help a small smile from sneaking out of the corners of his mouth, despite his best efforts.

When the last notes rung out and faded, Harry looked very pleased. “Thank you.”

“I’m glad you don’t insist on putting candles in this thing,” Hamish said in a clear attempt to ease the heavy sentiments that hung in the air as thick as the heat and began cutting into the cake and sorting it onto three small plates. “Else the whole place would probably go up.”

It vaguely occurred to Eggsy to wonder why Merlin wouldn’t be here to celebrate the birthday of his own creation, but at least Hamish was, and Harry seemed content with just his presence. But even that observation was quickly washed away upon the first cautious taste of Harry’s cake, which essentially was straight whisky in baked good form. Eggsy tried not to cough. “ _Jesus_ , that’s…” After one glance at Harry’s expression, he amended his statement to say, “...memorable.”

“You can always have seconds,” Harry said.

Eggsy suppressed a wince. “Great.”

“And to wash it down,” Hamish added, pouring out the drams and nudging a glass towards Eggsy.

Eggsy looked at what was essentially his Christmas meal. Whisky with a side of whisky. “We’re all going to die of cirrhosis at this rate.”

“Speak for yourselves,” Harry sniffed.

After a moment to consider that prospect, Hamish tipped his glass in Eggsy’s direction in recognition, not the least bit troubled. “At least it would have been well earned.”

 

_____

 

 _Be careful what you wish for_ , Eggsy thought as he struggled to pull his boots from knee-deep snow that was as sticky as wet mud and blinked away the swirling flakes that had an uncanny knack for targeting his eyes. It was a journey that would have taken mere minutes the previous month, but Hamish had warned him about the snow and here it was: each step between the house and the barn was its own small battle with the elements, made worse by the sharp winds that stung his cheeks and the sheets of snow that were still coming down. 

It was also bitterly cold, colder than even Eggsy could have anticipated, a sharp, incisive frigidity that cut through any exposed part of his body. For the hundredth time, he was grateful to Harry for ordering him proper winter clothes, else he’d probably still be running around in a hoodie and trainers like a twat to this day.

At last, the long, rectangular structure of the barn appeared amidst the sea of snow swells that threatened to swallow it it and Eggsy hastened his steps until he reached the large clearing before the great barn doors that Hamish was scrupulously keeping free of snow.

The inside of the barn was stuffy and hot by comparison. There were several heaters going at full blast and the air was thick with the scent of hay, manure, and blood. The latter of which Eggsy was here for: lambing.

As was the case with almost all animals, nature took its course without much human interference required, but with so many pregnant ewes and the sheer number of births taking place, both Hamish and him were on hand to monitor the herd for dystocia.

He spotted Hamish towards the end of a long row of lambing jugs and would have greeted him with a cheery and slightly teeth-chattering had he not followed Hamish’s line of sight to the creature nestled in his hands: a newly birthed lamb, still wet and streaked with blood and placenta, but unnaturally still.

“Shit.” He felt unaccountably guilty for not being there, even though it hadn’t been his shift and there would have been little he could have done besides.

“It happens,” Hamish said without looking up.

The would-be mother hovered nearby, agitatedly hoofing at the hay and dirt, trying to get at the baby she probably thought Hamish was threatening.

“What will you—” Eggsy started to ask, but Hamish abruptly stood up, the dead lamb still cradled in his hands, and left the pen and its bleating lone occupant behind. Brows furrowed in confusion, Eggsy followed him. “Oi, hey.”

“First go round, not every mother will have her lamb, and not every lamb will have its mother,” Hamish said, not even pausing in his long strides. “But sometimes, man can outwit nature.”

Just as suddenly, Hamish entered one of the empty pens. Or so Eggsy thought. In it now contained a single, clearly recently born lamb, snow white fur still splotched with blood, stumbling around the small space, bleating plaintively.

“This one was part of a trio and rejected from its original mother,” Hamish explained as he knelt down inside the pen and laid out the corpse of the stillborn on the ground.

It all clicked. “A lamb in need of a mother, and a mother in need of a lamb.”

“Precisely.” Hamish smiled, pleased. It was lovely to behold. It made Eggsy realise that Hamish didn’t smile all that much. To see one now was like the rare sighting of some exotic creature. Of course, it still didn’t explain why he was still carrying around a dead animal though. “But our bereft mother will sense this one is not her own and will reject it too.”

Eggsy stared at the, for lack of a better term, lost little lamb, still making sad, woeful noises, looking more pitiful by the second. “I suppose we can always bottle feed….” He stilled when Hamish pulled out a fucking huge knife from seemingly nowhere. “ _Jesus fuck_ , Hamish!”

At first, Eggsy thought he was going to hack the dead lamb into pieces for some macabre reason, but Hamish was as nimble with the knife as a chef, cutting around the neck and each leg to carefully skin the fur off the body in such a way as to keep the main torso of the coat intact. It took a bit of wince-inducing manoeuvring to peel the skin away from the musculature, but soon Hamish had the slightly blood-covered fur skin of an entire lamb in his hands.

“Not enough time for that. We’ll put this coat on our abandoned lamb here,” Hamish said, as he scooped up the living lamb with one great swipe of his hand, much to the small creature’s immense protest. Turned out, lambs were very much like small children in not appreciating being manhandled into undesirable clothing, but Hamish gently if firmly pulled the lamb into its new second patchwork coat. “The scent will be enough for the mother to accept this lamb as her own and let it nurse from her. In a few days, the lamb will take on the scent of the mother’s milk and won’t need to wear—”

“The dead skin of its brethren?” Eggsy finished for him. “Bit disturbing, but I get it.”

“Everything in its place,” Hamish said as he set the lamb back down again.

Eggsy watched as the lamb stumbled around, seemingly confused at its newly acquired second coat. “And what about what’s left of that?” he asked, nodding to the gruesome sight of the skinned corpse still on the ground.

“That’s tonight’s dinner.”

Eggsy stared at him in horror.

“I’m joking, Eggsy.”

“Right.” Eggsy swallowed.

Hamish’s eyes gleamed with mirth. “Not really enough meat on its bones at that age anyway.”

 

_____

 

Another long night passed with various other lambs born into the world, fortunately with few other incidents save but for a few lambs that needed to be set in the correct birthing positions, and no other deaths. It was _thrilling_ to see the so much abundant new life. To have been such an intimate part in shepherding it. Gratifying in a way Eggsy couldn’t describe. Made him glad all over again he had chosen this course in life.

It was hard and exhausting work nonetheless, and Eggsy gratefully, if a bit punch drunk, accepted the dram Hamish offered him when they stumbled into his office in the wee hours of the morning, huddling close together on the couch even though the air was plenty warm enough.

“I wish I could say we’re finished for the season, but there’ll be more nights like these to come,” Hamish said as he held up his glass. “You did good work today. Better than I could have done on my own. Your presence here now, Eggsy, has made our lives a lot richer, so thank you.”

Eggsy smiled tiredly, knocking both his glass and shoulder against Hamish’s. “It’s amazing to watch you work. I may be formally trained, but time and time again I’ve been amazed by the way you just seem to _know_ how these animals work. Sometimes I feel like I’ve learned more by watching you these past few months than all my years at uni.”

Eggsy drank a good mouthful to Hamish’s more appreciative sip, letting the burn sear every inch of his throat, warm his stomach, spread out through his veins, and buoy his heavy mind. He kept sneaking glances over at Hamish, who had a prominent profile. His face was carved in natural contours. Long hollows in his cheeks. A slight bump on the bridge of his nose. His brow was heavy and intense. His eyes were deep set and framed in thick, long lashes. The irises held so many intriguing colours of green and brown. He had—and this was definitely the exhaustion talking—a beautifully shaped head.

Those large hands that were so capable easily folded around the glass in his hands. They rested on his long legs.

Everything about Hamish was like a study in desire. Eggsy wanted him. He never wanted anything more than him in this moment.

“Do you still like me?” Eggsy blurted out, rather than think it like he intended.

Hamish appeared just as taken aback by his outburst, those finely admired features quickly going through the motions of confusion and then wariness. “Is this a test? I don’t quite follow.”

Shaking his head at his own folly, Eggsy tried to use his words. “We kissed. Or...I kissed you, maybe, but you definitely kissed me back. I think. That wasn’t all just in my head, was it?” His whole body was burning, and yet a cold, sick feeling flooded his stomach. “Oh god, it was, wasn’t it?”

“No. It wasn’t just you,” Hamish finally admitted, his gaze somewhere around the drink cradled in his hands. “Eggsy...I….”

“You were being very considerate the first time and I appreciate that,” Eggsy continued, emboldened, because if he stopped now, nerves would get the better of him. “But I’m better now, and my...my feelings haven’t changed. Have yours?”

After a moment’s hesitation: “No.”

It was one of the most thrilling and terrifying things Eggsy had ever heard. And exasperating. He tipped the rest of his glass’s contents down his throat, set it aside, and said, “Then why the fuck ain’t you throwing me over the closest flat surface right now?”

Hamish finally looked at him, surprise combusting into a sudden tense anticipation, like Eggsy had gone and dropped a match into a tank of petrol.

At first, neither moved, as if fearing the moment they should look down and become aware of having run off the cliff. A moment where Eggsy thought he would get anything from a punch to the face to an immediate and justifiable sacking.

But then Hamish reached up and cupped Eggsy’s cheek, his whole warm hand almost covering half of Eggsy’s head, fingers winding through his hair in such a soothing manner, Eggsy subconsciously leaned into it. This close he could smell the deep pine scent and grass that always seemed to cling to Hamish’s skin.

When Hamish brought his mouth to Eggsy’s, or maybe Eggsy’s brought his mouth to Hamish’s, it was hard to tell, the first contact of warm, soft lips was almost a shock. It wasn’t the sudden collision of before, Eggsy half out of his mind with concussion. This was fully aware of every nerve ending flaring to life, of the light scratch of Hamish’s five o’clock shadow, of the moisture of saliva from where their lips slid together, of the caress of body heat.

As if by instinct, Hamish’s hand curled around the back of his neck and drew him closer until Eggsy could practically mold his body against his, moaning and opening his mouth and tilting his head like a flower blooming in the face of the sun. The kiss deepened to tongue and teeth against the inside of his bottom lip, a gentle squeeze to the back of Eggsy’s neck, sending electrifying sparks down his spine. His hands found fistfuls of Hamish’s jumper, and Hamish's other hand closed around his hip, sliding down to cup his arse and practically scoop Eggsy up into his lap.

From there, it was easy to roll onto his back on the couch cushions and drag Hamish down on top of him, barely letting their lips part, circling his arms around Hamish’s neck, his legs around Hamish’s hips, to keep him there, them there, grinding against each other, swallowing down each other’s breaths. Possibly for forever.

At first, Eggsy didn’t notice anything beyond the half stolen breaths and uninhibited moans slipping past their mouths, the clink of a belt buckle deftly being undone by his clever quick fingers. But when Hamish stilled above him, tensing, he became aware of a beeping sound. “What’s that?” he asked through swollen lips, head still dazed and only partly caught up with the present.

Hamish’s hand removed his mobile from the back pocket of his jeans, and whatever was on the screen caused him to frown. “Harry’s distress signal.”

“What?”

The cold rolled in when Hamish disentangled himself from Eggsy and sat up, leaving Eggsy to more clumsily follow suit as he tried to straighten out his dishevelled clothes as best he could, suddenly feeling self-conscious.

“It’s an automated alert. It’s only triggered if something happened to damage Harry’s internal processes.”

Though Hamish spoke calmly, Eggsy thought he would probably deliver news that the world was ending tomorrow in the same manner. There was a grim downturn to his mouth now and a hardening in his eyes that belied his deeper worry. “Where is he now?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.” Hamish tapped quietly at his phone, and Eggsy figured he must be pulling up some sort of GPS. “He’s at the edge of the northeast borders. Near the main road.”

“Jesus, what’s he doing all the way out there at this time of night and with this weather?” Eggsy asked. The last time he’d seen Harry was far earlier in the evening. Harry had been reading a book from the library whilst pretending to dust it.

“I don’t know,” Hamish said as he stood up and immediately went for his coat. “But I’m going to go get him.”

Eggsy frowned. “It’s still dark out. There’s over three feet of snow out there, and who knows what the roads are like.”

But Hamish didn’t even pause in his movements, wrapping himself up with a hat, gloves, and a scarf. “I’ll make the trip by foot if I must.”

Seeing how determined he was, Eggsy sprung up and started putting on his coat, hat, and gloves as well.

Now it was Hamish’s turn to pause and look bewildered. “What are you doing?”

“What’s it look like?” Eggsy asked right back. “I’m coming with you.”

“That’s not necessary,” Hamish snapped.

A bit rude, Eggsy thought, glaring at him and standing his ground. “He’s my friend too.”

His pure stubbornness must have made for a convincing enough sight, because Hamish only sighed and started for the door, leaving Eggsy to hurry along to keep up with those bloody long legs.

 

_____

 

Fortunately, Hamish had a plow hitched to the front of the van that made quick work of their long drive up to the main road, parting snow easily as the Red Sea. By the time they reached it, they were surprised to discover the van’s headlights illuminating recently cleared blacktop.

“Unusual,” Hamish had remarked when Eggsy pointed it out, not looking happy about it. “Normally they close the roads off for a few days.”

“It says Harry should just be around this bend,” Eggsy said, eyes glued to his Hamish’s phone that had an astonishingly sophisticated display program. Hamish had explained Merlin’s application could pinpoint Harry’s location within six feet, anywhere in the world.

The vehicle rolled over the scant carpet of snow that had fallen since its last clearing in a rhythmic crunching sound that drowned out even the steady chugging of the heater blowing hot dry air in Eggsy’s face, louder for the way neither of them felt like speaking. The snow flew at the windscreen like insects, making visibility beyond a few mere feet impossible. There was a grim tension hanging between them, a mounting dread as Hamish rounded a large drift of snow and approached the blinking green dot on Merlin’s GPS program.

“Here,” Eggsy said when they were about as close as they could bring the van to Harry’s location. Looking out the window revealed a seemingly endless sea of white snow stretching out to a barely distinguishable black horizon. It covered nearly everything under the same blanket: trees, hills, rocks, streams. Hardly anything stood out. How the hell would they be able to find Harry in all that?

But Hamish didn’t even hesitate as he climbed out of the van and started the perilous descent down a rather steep ravine, and Eggsy had to follow, albeit slower and on shakier legs, all while keeping firm grip on the mobile, their only map.

The wind picked up, sending curtains of snow whipping about the air and reducing visibility to inches. Eggsy sniffed and tried to wipe his nose, pulling his collar up over his stinging cold cheeks. They were now all but on top of Harry’s reported GPS location, but there was nothing but blank whiteness as far as the eye could see.

“Harry!” Hamish called out. His voice sounded flat in the cold air, travelling only a few feet before abruptly absorbed by the wind. It didn’t seem to matter. Hamish called out, again and again, each time more desperate, “Harry!”

But there was nothing.

How long had Harry been out here for? If he was in trouble, if he was hurt, he could have easily been buried by now. Eggsy started kicking at the snow, then bent down to dig with his hands, wishing he had had the foresight to have brought a shovel.

When Hamish saw what Eggsy was doing, he began to do the same until they were clearing a widening circle around them. The snow soaked through Eggsy’s gloves and the cold started to numb his fingers. His nose was freely running. He couldn’t even feel his legs and feet anymore.

But he didn’t stop, and neither did Hamish.

He didn’t know how much time passed. The world narrowed down to an endless canvas of white and a repetitive movement: plunge his arms into the stuff, lift and toss it away. Repeat. His lungs were burning. His arms began to ache, exhaustion dragging at his body. His teeth were chattering. Sweat dripped down the back of his neck and froze in the wind.

“Harry!”

Hamish’s cry was different this time, more alarmed. Eggsy stopped and turned to find him kneeling several feet away. It was another sluggish struggle to close the gap, and when he did, he almost wished he had stayed home after all.

Harry wasn’t human. He didn’t possess the bright crimson blood, guts, and viscera any living, breathing creature did. But still, it was a gruesome sight. In the faint light from the van’s headlights, Eggsy could see half his face had been smashed in, revealing a mess of wiring, metal, and a strange blue, almost black in the dark, liquid that darkened the snow around him. His suit hung in tatters off his body. His arms were mangled, splattered with more of that blue substance. The bottom half of him was entirely missing.

Eggsy stared into that one unseeing brown eye that remained. What was left of Harry’s face looked as if it were etched in fear.

“What happened?” Eggsy finally dared to ask. “Did some animal…?”

“They were animals alright,” Hamish said darkly, picking up what was left of Harry and cradling him to his chest as gentle as he had been with the newborn lambs.

“What about…” Eggsy almost choked “...the rest of him?”

“If it’s here, it’ll have to wait to be recovered when the snow’s melted.” Hamish didn’t even turn of pause as he began the long ascent up back to the van, now with the added burden of Harry’s upper body, which still had to have been heavy. “I have the most important parts.”

Eggsy tried to remain close behind him, ready just in case Hamish misstepped, but Hamish was as sure footed as ever. And so immensely strong, never once wavering with his precious cargo, even when one of Harry’s arms, now hanging off his body by little more than a few wires, threatened to get tangled up in his legs.

By unspoken agreement, Eggsy got behind the wheel while Hamish remained in the back with Harry. It was stupid and illogical, but Eggsy couldn't help but feel the need to drive extra cautiously, like one hard jolt would irreparably harm Harry further.

 _He’s just a bot_ , Eggsy told himself, hands tightening on the wheel. _Just wire and metal. He can be fixed. He’ll be fine_. He glanced at Hamish in the rearview mirror. “How’s it look?”

If Hamish was as disturbed by Harry’s appearance as Eggsy, he didn’t show it, bent over Harry’s body, hands delved into his chest like a surgeon physically pumping a heart with his bare hands. “The cores are damaged. Hard to tell how badly until we get him back to the lab.”

“Yeah, but it’s alright, yeah? Merlin can fix him?”

“Harry’s code is continuously being backed up if worst comes to worst. It may take some time to repair his body, but his core personality and memories can be restored.”

Of course someone like Merlin would create several redundancies for his tech, even for ones as unique as Harry. Somehow, Eggsy didn’t feel that much better. “Will he remember it?”

“Remember what?” 

“The attack.”

“For as long as it took to until his processors went offline, yes.”

Eggsy grimaced. How many times did Dean’s fist make contact with his face? How he still flinched at sudden movements and angered shouting. There were still gaps surrounding his own recent concussion. As far as he was concerned, they could stay that way. “Maybe perfect recall like that ain’t such a blessing.”

Finally, Hamish looked up and met his gaze in the mirror. “What do you mean?”

“I’m saying...things like that...they stay with you, is all. Maybe not having to remember it would be preferable.”

“Are you saying I should tamper with Harry’s memories?” Hamish asked sharply.

Eggsy glanced in the mirror again. For all the heat pumping through the interior of the van, he suddenly felt cold. It took him a long time to reply. “Didn’t realise you’d be doing anything.”

It was an icy quiet ride after that as they made their way back up to the drive to the house. As soon as the car stopped, Hamish jumped out and carried Harry straight through the house, leaving a trail of melting snow behind him. He only stopped when he reached the solid steel door that supposedly led to the basement.

Eggsy couldn’t be surprised when Hamish raised his palm to the hand scanner and the door pinged cheerfully as it unlocked itself.

The stairs were wide and solid concrete. The lights were already on.

The basement was extensive. Far larger than the actual dimensions of the house. Even if Eggsy could envision what the world’s richest technological genius’s lab could look like, he couldn’t have imagined this: a scene straight out of a science fiction film with its long rows of steel work tables, trays of various nails, nuts, bolts, and washers, screens displaying unintelligible models and schematics in every direction, robotic arms, power tools, sheet metal, soldering tools, even medical equipment. There were large machines with sleek lines that Eggsy couldn’t even begin to identify and there were curiously traditional manual tools like a simple screwdriver and spanner.

Hamish cleared the surface of a work table by simply sweeping his arm across the top of it and shoving everything off, then carefully laid Harry down upon it. He moved quickly, attaching wires to the inside of Harry’s exposed chest and reading whatever was being displayed on the nearest monitor before grimacing.

Eggsy remained quiet, hovering near the far wall, unable to bring himself any closer for a myriad of reasons, from not wanting to get in the way to the ballooning sphere of pressure growing in his chest, some unnameable feeling very close to anger. Instead, he forced himself not to think and only observe, watching Hamish as he moved with the same confidence Eggsy had witnessed hundreds of times before, except now it was with metal instead of livestock.

But when Hamish retrieved a large jug filled with that same mysterious blue liquid Eggsy now realised was a vital component of Harry’s hardware, the question left his lips before he could think better of it. “What’s that?”

Hamish glanced at him in surprise, as if he had forgotten Eggsy was there. “Ginger calls it _alpha gel_.” His tone made it clear what he thought about that term. “It’s a delivery mechanism for the nanite technology that provides the processing power it takes to simulate a human brain’s neural network.”

Harry’s very lifeforce, spreading out and darkening the snow like spilt ink.

Eggsy blinked away the image and rubbed his eyes, but the fluorescent lights above him were bright and irritating, and even though the space was vast, the walls were still closing in. He pushed off the table he’d been leaning against and ran for the stairs, tearing blindly through the house, not stopping until he burst through the front door and out into the cold early morning, sucking down crisp, clean air until it burned through the unbearable weight suffocating his chest.

He didn’t know how long he remained like that, shivering, his shuddering pants emerging as puffs of dissipating smoke, watching the snow silently fall much more sedately now.

He was calm by the time Hamish came for him.

“My dad was in the Royal Marines,” Eggsy said to Hamish without turning around. Didn’t really even hear him or see him come out. He just _knew_. “He was stationed in Egypt, I think. It was around the time the government wanted to replace all the soldiers with bots. Safer, they said. No more casualties. So even though my dad knew he was gonna be outta a job and pay in a month’s time, he still stayed on to help oversee the transition. This was 1997. Almost Christmas.”

He heard Hamish take a sharp breath. “He was at the checkpoint.”

“They said my dad was the only one to sense something wrong, like he got a sixth sense one of the bots just wasn’t acting right. They said he started shouting that the bot had a bomb, _was_ a bomb. Everyone was running away, but he was running towards it, pushed it out onto the street as far away from everyone as he could. Lotta injuries that day. Property damage, sure. But no casualties. Except the one. It was because of what my dad did that made them reconsider replacing all human soldiers with bots.”

“Eggsy, I’m so sor—”

“They said Merlin’s technology was infallible. One hundred percent secure. Couldn’t be hacked or reprogrammed by the wrong people. That was the company line, wasn’t it? They were wrong.” Eggsy turned around and looked Hamish in the eye. “You were wrong.”

Hamish looked at him sorrowfully. There were deep shadows beneath his eyes. His face was pale, the lines in them deep. He looked hollow. “I was much more arrogant twenty years ago. I made mistakes. Mistakes that cost lives. I learned from them, but I still regret them. I’ll always regret them.”

“I hated Merlin,” Eggsy said. “He took away my father. He took away the only jobs people like me could get. He took and he took and he took, and all he ever seemed to get was richer. I hated him. And then I met you. And I liked you. I liked you _so much_.”

“I’m sorry,” Hamish said again. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know how to tell you. I don’t...Merlin was always something I could use to maintain my privacy. He’s a character for the press, and op-eds, and stock prices. I never really saw him as the real me. I never saw the harm in keeping the two identities separate. Until you. You made it clear you hated him, and I didn’t know why, but I knew I didn’t want you to hate me. I was a coward. And then when I was resolved to tell you, there just never seemed like the right time and place.”

“So you kept lying. All this time.” And it was so obvious, looking back on it all. How Merlin was all but absent. All those strange and uncomfortable looks he garnered whenever he mentioned it. How clearly fond Harry was of Hamish just as much as Hamish was of Harry. Creator and creation. “I’m such an idiot.” Eggsy shook his head, blinking away the prick of moisture that stung his eyes. Even now, he didn’t want it to be true. That he was desperately hoping he’d would tell him it was all a joke. That the real Merlin would be arriving tomorrow when the snow was expected to clear. “Harry gonna be alright?”

“Eventually,” Hamish said.

“Good,” Eggsy said, nodding and hugging himself tighter. “Suppose you’ll have to tell him goodbye for me.”

Hamish blinked, taken aback. “Eggsy...you don’t have to...please—”

“Consider this my two week’s notice,” Eggsy said. “I can hardly stand to look at you...and I absolutely cannot work with you. I could barely stand the thought of working for a man I hated, and now knowing he’s _you_...I just...I just can’t.”

Hamish said nothing.

He turned and moved to go back inside, sliding past Hamish without looking at him, but as he was about to climb the stairs for his room, he couldn’t help glancing back, just once.

Hamish stood alone out in the snow, highlighted only by the front light, a lonely, unmoving figure who seemed very much in that moment like a king looking out over an empty, desolate kingdom.


	4. Chapter 4

The alarm went off far too early, and when Eggsy opened his eyes, he was awash in a sea of white on white on white, like being caught in a whiteout storm in the Arctic. Not even Scotland’s winters could compete. White sheets, white walls, white floorboards, white trim, white furniture, thin white gauzy curtains which only seemed to exacerbate the splash of sun streaming in through the windows.

It’s all a bit much, but one would think after ten months of this, he’d be used to it by now.

After blinking away the sun dots in his vision, Eggsy pushed back the (white) duvet and climbed out of bed. It’s become an automated routine he didn’t have to engage his brain for anymore: stumble to the loo for morning ablutions (stumble wasn’t the right word, really, there’s so much empty space and endless options for sleekly designed storage, it’s impossible to stumble over anything), retrieve clothing from the white wardrobe, then make his way to the pristine white marble kitchen where Tilde and Roxy, looking like fashion models ready for their IKEA photo shoot, were already sat at the counter over a full breakfast spread of atrociously Swedish things while the morning news droned at low volume.

“Like clockwork,” Tilde said without looking up from her tablet. “You are very consistent, Eggsy. You’d make the Germans proud.”

“Cheers.” Eggsy grabbed a slice of toast off the rack and avoided the array of cold cut meats, fish pastes, and cheeses that Tilde always insisted was actual breakfast. _Swedes._ Honestly. “I think.”

Roxy allowed Eggsy to get as far as buttering said toast before she asked, “So, are you nervous?”

“No.” Eggsy kept his tone even while concentrating on buttering to the edges. They were tricky things, them edges. Also, Roxy was a bloodhound when she scented the slightest hint of weakness. “Why should I be?”

To this day, only Eggsy has ever been able to drive Roxy to the temptation of rolling her eyes. It’s a feat he’s absurdly proud of. “Because _he’ll_ be there. Probably in the same room.”

“So?” Eggsy shrugged, perfectly indifferent. Well done, him. He knew it was driving Roxy absolutely mad. “He was just my employer for half a year, one year ago. I don’t understand the fuss you’re making about this.”

“And an almost lover,” Tilde added almost absentmindedly. She still wasn’t looking up from her tablet, so she remained completely oblivious to the _Et tu, Brute?_ glare Eggsy shot in her direction.

Roxy smirked. “Until your tragic past came between your blossoming romance.” A regular comedy act, the two of them.

“ _Now_ ,” Eggsy said, ignoring them both because they were nosy little gossips with no sense of boundaries. Tilde used to be more respectful until Roxy corrupted her. “He’s just a benefactor of my university’s robotics department swanning about on a publicity tour.” And, he further wanted to argue if it didn’t make him look like he doth protest too much, it’s not even unique to Eggsy’s uni: Merlin’s company currently issued grants, gifts, and scholarships to at least half a dosen institutions in the UK alone. “He’ll speak to my boss, not me. He probably won’t even see me.” Not if he hid in the back behind many taller people.

Roxy didn’t appear the least bit convinced. “But you’re the project lead. Your boss barely knows anything about your research.”

“That’s not really how these things work, Rox. My name don’t mean anything to no one. Not exactly an ideal photo op.”

“You should give him our thanks,” Tilde piped up. Oh no, not her too.

“For what?” Eggsy asked, trying to keep the exasperation out of his tone.

“For agreeing to the deal.”

And that was it, really. “I had nothing to do with that! Don’t even know why he did it, except maybe out of guilt or hatred, and either don’t exactly make me feel any better!”

It’s only when Roxy and Tilde looked at him with pity in their expressions that Eggsy realised he might’ve been half-shouting that last bit. Damn.

Tilde’s deal unexpectedly came through a mere two weeks after Eggsy left the farm and Merlin’s employ. He’d been staying with Roxy and Tilde in Fort William, and it had still felt a little too close to Merlin for comfort. In the end, though, Merlin assured him the quickest, easiest escape he could ever hope to get: suddenly accepting Tilde’s offer with very few objections and getting them back to London the very next week.

In the awkward silence, Roxy rather casually speared a red grape with a fork and popped it into her mouth with all the vindictive aplomb of a cat. “You know, this is the first time Merlin’s ever shown his face to the world at large. He’s quite fit. Not really your cellar-dwelling, vitamin D-deficient computer nerd I half-expected. Must have been all that sheep wrangling.”

“I’m gonna be late,” Eggsy said, making a large show of glancing at his dad’s watch he still wore (old timey, analog, ran ten minutes slow).

“It’s like someone opened his eyes and made him change his ways,” Roxy went on, feigning a scratch to her chin in thought. “A profound impact, if you will.”

Eggsy shoved the rest of his toast into his mouth as he stood up and busied himself with gathering his rucksack, trainers, and coat. “Goodbye, my lovely and very trying girls,” he mumbled around a wad of bread.

“Who are you calling a girl?” Tilde asked. They never let him get away with anything.

“I expect a full rundown of everything that happened tonight!” Roxy called after him.

After one last quick glance in the mirror to make sure he didn’t look too much a mess (just the usual dark circles and bags, but what else was new?), Eggsy made sure to flip her off on his way out the door, successfully ducking the piece of fruit lobbed unerringly in his direction.

 

_____

 

He was not actually going to be late for their all-important visit from their benefactor. In fact, Eggsy was several hours early. But that’s because he had to be in order to feed and water their patients, but more importantly, to _clean_.

So here he was on his hands and knees, half soaked and smelling like wet dog after having to do an emergency bath when an overeager puppy had a merry time rolling around in its own shit, scrubbing fur out of the corners not even the hoover attachments could reach (another point for humanity, but this was a fucking pyrrhic victory).

The veterinary robotics lab was not, much to Eggsy’s chagrin, as sterile as most of the the other robotics labs in the university. But of course, such a thing would be impossible, considering the lab also ran a free clinic in order to garner its test subjects. The bots were especially built to withstand fur and dander and any other manner of substance regularly emitted by a wide range of creatures, but somehow it all got into any seeming crack and crevice anyway, and Eggsy, as the lowest man on the ladder—a student—was the one tasked to stay on top of it.

So life hasn’t turned out the way he initially dreamt it would.

But Eggsy was, if anything, a survivor. He made do. Took a little time to lick his wounds, and if not exactly mended his broken heart, then at least sellotaped it all back together. Once he realised he really had zero chances of having a vet career in London working with live animals, he even decided to go back to school to pick up on the robotics part of his training he had previously scorned. He knew when to admit defeat.

Except, with a little bit of life experience under his belt, he realised he could do _more_. He didn’t just have to program veterinary bots for the rest of his life. In a university setting, he could be an advocate for reintroducing the human factor back into veterinary care for better patient outcomes and carry out the research to do it. Maybe if he was lucky, someone’ll throw gobs of funding at him to start his own clinic, and he could advertise the shit out of it as being the best fucking clinic in all of the UK, hard data to back it up. After all, people loved their fucking pets more than their own babies sometimes.

Nearly a semester into his new life as a midnight-oil-burning, shit-scooping, fur-hoovering researcher, he was surprised by how much he actually enjoyed it, even when the focus of his work was primarily bots and not the living and breathing creatures he had initially envisioned. By understanding their programming and surprisingly stringent limits, the monolithic dark spectre they’ve always held over his psyche had dissipated. Maybe it’s Harry’s influence, but after being exposed to such a human-seeming AI, the bots Eggsy encountered were little more than tools: imbued with no morality, as neutral as a car or a knife.

It didn’t make the pain of losing his father, or all the shit that followed, any less real, but the razor sharp edges had been significantly blunted.

Just as the first ambitious researchers and the more motivated students stumbled through the doors with thermoses of tea in hand, Eggsy deemed the floors clean enough to eat off and all their patients in about as presentable condition as they’d ever be, with the most adorable and friendliest put at the front and centre for prime photo opportunities.

“Alright, Unwin?” the lab director, Dr Spencer, greeted with an accompanying clap to the shoulder that almost tipped Eggsy over. “Ready for the big state visit?”

“A hundred percent, sir. It will be shock and awe.” He thought he did an excellent job of infusing his answer with the appropriate mixture of nervous excitement, neither quality of which he actually felt. In truth, it was dread. Low, constant dread.

Dr Spencer looked pleased. “Excellent!” Another balance-upsetting slap to his shoulder. “I suppose I should briefly explain what will happen. When Merlin arrives, he’ll start with Lauren’s table first and will then proceed in anti-clockwork fashion around the lab. Now, when we come to you, I expect you to give about a thirty-second summary of your research and one practical demonstration, allow him to ask any follow-up questions, and—”

“Pardon me, but _what_?” Eggsy interrupted before he could think better of it. “ _I’m_ presenting?”

Dr Spencer stared at him in bemusement. “Are you not the one who’s actually done the research, Unwin?”

“Well, yes. But….”

“But what?”

“I assumed our leads would be the ones who...who wanted the face time,” Eggsy said weakly. “And the rest of us would just be on hand to, uh, assist.”

“And what, exactly, would they have to say about research they know nothing about?” Dr Spencer asked him.

“Well, anyone can talk outta their arse about anything for thirty seconds.” His fucking big mouth. Again.

Dr Spencer arched a brow. “Nevertheless, this is at Merlin’s specific request. He wants to talk to the people in the trenches, the ones getting their hands dirty. And seeing as how it’s his money, I wasn’t going to argue.”

“Right. Right, of course. Shouldn’t be a problem, sir.”

Dr Spencer beamed. “Good. I knew I could rely on you, Unwin. You do solid work.” One more clap, and surely Eggsy would have a bruise forming there later tonight.

Eggsy nodded and smiled until Dr Spencer turned his back. He clenched his teeth to hold back the screams. Surely Merlin had to have reviewed the manifest prior to his visit. He’d know Eggsy worked there. Why was he still coming? Was this all some sort of bloody ruse just to see him? Eggsy almost wanted to slap himself for having such a self-aggrandising thought in the first place, and yet _still_.

Well, he’d just have to get on with it somehow. Keep a straight face. Chin up. It was only thirty seconds and a demonstration, maybe a question or two to seem interested. Eggsy took shits that lasted longer.

He’d be strictly professional. Because that’s all this visit was. Professional.

Rubbing his clammy hands on his front trousers, Eggsy tried to focus on what he’d say and show, running lines through his head over and over again to make sure he wouldn’t slip up and say something beyond the bounds of their strictly professional association, or worse, something improvised and all-too-frequently off-colour.

He was so absorbed in how to prepare for what was to come, he didn’t even noticed the speedily passing minutes, nor the steadily increasing population making the lab feel stuffy and hot (rarely did it see the full breadth of its staff gathered together within its walls at the same time), the thickening anticipation in the air mirrored in anxiously pacing animals. 

In fact, it wasn’t until a hush fell over the assembled gathering that Eggsy realized the lab doors were opening to admit their VIP guest.

What Eggsy hated most, maybe, was how Merlin’s entrance reminded him of a trite film cliche. The one who got away slowly walking back into his life once more, looking unfairly handsome, enhanced somehow by time instead of ruined by it, a whole universe sucked into his gravity, along with all the attention and oxygen in the room.

Hamish was different than Merlin, Eggsy suddenly realised. Hamish wore pilled jumpers, dirt-encrusted wellies, and thick-rimmed glasses. Merlin wore expensive bespoke suits, gleaming oxfords, and had eyes that contained every colour Eggsy had ever seen across the Scottish highlands. Hamish was unobtrusive. Merlin commanded the entire room. Eggsy was going cross-eyed from overlaying the memory of one man over the very reality before him. How could he not have known? Oh, that’s right: until only very recently, the man had been more myth than reality. Nowadays, he was everywhere. Today, he was here.

“Here’s a man who needs little introduction, though I’ve been commanded by the provost to give one anyway,” Dr Spencer said, lips brimming into his charming, people-facing smile as he sparked a smattering of chuckles. “He’s been called the Father of AI, the Last of the Great Innovators, and, vexingly, taller than one originally thought.” More laughter. “A Nobel Prize winner, a MacArthur Fellow, a Fulbright Scholar, and, funnily enough, has even won a technical Emmy Award. He’s the founder of the world’s largest corporation and is still, quite handily, the world’s wealthiest individual, latest cryptocurrencies notwithstanding. I could go on and on with a further laundry list of accolades and recognition, but long story short: he’s better known to the world at large as _Merlin_ , and your greatest patron, so I do hope you’ll join me in giving him a very warm welcome to our humble little laboratory.”

On cue, everyone brought up their hands in applause like perfectly trained seals. With an introduction like that, it was hard to believe Eggsy had writhed crotches with a billionaire. No mention of Merlin the shepherd, or Merlin the deliverer of lambs, or Merlin the breeder of sheep dogs. Those felt like real titles to Eggsy.

For his part, Merlin appeared appropriately embarrassed and pleased as Dr Spencer stepped back to give him the floor. He held up his large hands, and the room went silent. “I know what you’re all thinking,” Merlin said in a voice that made Eggsy almost shiver. Gods, Eggsy forgot how deep his voice was. “All that money and awards, and he still hasn’t figured out how to regrow his hair.”

More laughter.

“But to be serious for a moment, I am here for rather selfish reasons.” Eggsy’s heart stuttered in his chest. “I want to see what you lot have done so I can pretend I helped you in some way and feel good about myself.”

Another round of laughs. Eggsy could breathe again. Merlin still hadn’t met his eye. Maybe he hadn’t even seen Eggsy. Attempting to be inconspicuous, Eggsy shuffled a little bit more behind Hugo and kept his head down.

“It’s just money,” Merlin said with a careless shrug. “And it’s more money than one man really ought to have. But you all are the ones who are picking up the torch, carrying on, driving innovation and progress ever forward in ways not even I nor any predictive code I could develop would ever have predicted. You are all brilliant, that isn’t even in question. But more importantly, more critically, you are all more thoughtful and ingenuitive than I ever was at your age. And having been at this for nearly a year now, actually seeing what you young, bright things are getting up to, I can feel very reassured that the future is bright and in very good hands. Now, let’s see what you all have to show me.”

And that was it, really. Everyone scattered excitedly to their assigned stations. With a start, Eggsy realised the rousing speech Merlin just delivered was generic enough to be given at every bloody lab and department he visited. Very efficient. He was slower to move to his, and maybe he would admit to dragging his feet just a little for the unpleasantness that lay ahead.

Many of the other students in the lab were working on much flashier, more impressive research in hopes of securing funding for a startup. New codes and programs and platforms. Diagnostic tools. Surgical tools. Metric tools. Analysis tools. They had pretty visualisations and slick UIs and were the stuff tech journalists salivated over writing about. His own interests and work were rather more...humble. He wasn’t going to make a big splash in the tech papers, probably wouldn’t win any awards. He’d always be overshadowed. And that was alright. Eggsy hadn’t set out to do this for the accolades. His mission had been simple from the start, and he’s stayed true to it. He was proud of his work, most of the time.

Which is why he was annoyed with himself for feeling a bit metaphorically underdressed for the occasion. He shouldn’t give a toss what Merlin would think of his work. He certainly wasn’t here to fucking impress him, of all people. The research was already funded and couldn’t even be taken away or cut off short of grotesque ethics violations, and if anyone had to worry about that, it certainly wasn’t Eggsy.

He tried not to watch as Merlin progressed around the lab, watching demonstrations with a politely, and sometimes even genuinely, interested expression, listening attentively to each student, asking what seemed to be good questions or providing other sorts of feedback given the enthusiastic replies he was given in return. 

And as Merlin drew ever closer, Eggsy couldn’t help shrinking himself back even further, trying to remain out of sight until he absolutely couldn’t avoid the unavoidable anymore. Without making it seem like it, of course. All very casual and cool-like. Sure. Like rushing up to the edge of a cliff, knowing it was gonna happen, and unable to stop it anyway.

And then the moment arrived far too soon.

“This is Gary Unwin, a first-year researcher,” Dr Spencer introduced, unknowingly unnecessarily. “His work is a bit more unconventional that what we usually dabble in here. He’s focused on decreasing a robotics presence in veterinary care.”

When their eyes met, Eggsy couldn’t look away. It was difficult to determine what was in Merlin’s gaze. His face remained carefully neutral, though he couldn’t quite maintain the pleased benefactor facade he had been sporting up until now. His eyes were soft, though, Eggsy reflected. The glasses had masked so much nuance.

All too aware of the moments slipping by in increasing awkwardness, Eggsy finally cleared his throat. “Only on the client-facing side, sir.” Wobbly smile. Not quite convincing, but enough so that no one would actually question it.

“Rather bold,” Merlin said with a near tentative quality to his tone. “Please, elaborate further.”

And so Eggsy took a deep breath and did just that.

Introducing actual humans to handle animals while bots perfected necessary veterinary procedures resulted in less stress outputs on behalf of the patient, especially in situations that necessitated a prolonged stay in clinic. Furthermore, a bit of additional programming within bots to emulate more human mannerisms, and some aesthetic modifications to bot appearance and especially scent output resulted in even more positive outcomes. Eggsy might have been inspired by Harry in regards to that one.

The tour de force was the puppy Eggsy had chosen, Letitia, a little beagle who had been the runt of her litter. Letitia was his model patient, having learned to be handled by the specially outfitted bot Eggsy worked on with aplomb. And even with all the strange sights and sounds around her now, she behaved beautifully. Eggsy couldn’t have asked for a better show than if he had bribed her with several treats himself.

“Impressive,” Merlin said once Eggsy finished his dog and bot show. The words didn’t feel insincere, but then, that was always Hamish’s great skill. “I’ve seen a lot of gadgets and tool-based inventions so far, but not a lot of work on methodology innovation. Your focus is tight and disciplined, and therefore quite clear and successful for it. If properly executed, these sorts of findings will have a profound impact on the industry, you know.”

“Thank you,” Eggsy managed to say through his tight throat, busying himself with fussing over Letitia and cradling her to his chest, which she took as her cue to start licking his chin.

The warm, small canine body in his hands, with Merlin mere feet away, reminded him of JD for a moment, and he braced himself for the accompanying small ache that came alongside it. After a long bout of indecision, he had ultimately decided to leave her on the farm where she’d be far happier with her mother and all that land to roam, fresh air to breathe, and purpose to fulfill. It would have been the height of selfishness to have brought her with him when his circumstances had been so uncertain at the time and everything kept reminding him of all he had lost.

When Eggsy looked back up and met Merlin’s gaze, Merlin opened his mouth to speak, only to close it again.

“He’s working on a paper to submit to conferences,” Dr Spencer said, wilfully oblivious to the awkward turn the silent lapse had taken. “He’ll have a wider audience soon enough.”

“Excellent,” Merlin said.

It was over.

Dr Spencer and Merlin moved on to the next station and Eggsy could breathe again with only the lingering echoes of his heart beating in his ears. Strangely, it didn’t feel like relief coursing through his veins so much as an underwhelming sense of disappointment. God only knew why. Merlin had said nice things and even, Eggsy thought, seemed to have meant them. He didn’t make a fool of himself. He got through an uncomfortable confrontation with an ex-lover ( _almost_ ex-lover, he could practically hear Tilde correct) and now he would never have to see the man again.

Soon enough, Merlin was off to visit other departments and centres, and the energy in the lab dissipated not long after, replaced by varying levels of afterglow and awe. The last few hours of Eggsy’s shift went by in a daze, and soon he was trading his laboratory coat for his outdoor one, ignoring the piteous whines of the animals staring out beseechingly at him from within their pens.

He made his way out of the building by sheer muscle memory whilst his mind was occupied with thoughts of how best to frame the entire encounter to Roxy in a way that would prevent as many questions as possible (impossible, he knew, but he still had to try).

“Eggsy.”

Eggsy froze and turned around.

There were no complicated feelings about seeing Harry again, looking as perfect and posh as he should always be, leaning against the side of a black town car that must be Merlin’s transport in the city.

Eggsy grinned. “Harry, it’s really good to see you again, mate.”

A small smile played about Harry’s mouth. His eyes shone with warmth. “And you as well.”

“So...big trip to the city and get stuck playing chauffeur, is it?” Eggsy nodded to the car.

“It was at my request,” Harry said. “I don’t find it particularly enjoyable to be around those contraptions you house in the lab. It’s a bit like feeling sorry for caged animals at the zoo.”

Eggsy blinked, having never really given much thought to it before. But then, he never really had to consider the matter from a bot’s point of view before, and certainly not from a bot who had his own recent run-in with the worst of humanity. The very reminder of The Incident, as it came to be known in Eggsy’s mind, still made him feel ill. He swallowed back the flood of sourness in his mouth. “I’m sorry I never got to say goodbye before I left, but I’m glad to see you’re alright.”

“Yes. I had to be informed of a great many changes once my consciousness came back online,” Harry said as he needlessly adjusted his glasses. “Many of which were...disappointing.”

There were any number of words Harry could have used, but for some reason, _disappointing_ felt like the very worst one. “I had to leave. I couldn’t stay. How could I have gone on, knowing the man who engineered the means of my father’s death was living and working under the same roof? Fuck, building even more potential weapons in that fucking basement of his.”

“So you ran away back to London and...what? Surrounded yourself by the very things you claim to hate so much? Seems rather masochistic. Or hypocritical.”

Eggsy frowned. He didn’t much like the accusing tone of Harry’s voice. “Wasn’t really much of a choice, yeah? In this world, you work with bots, or you don’t got a job. Your master saw to that.”

“And now you’re doing the very same things Merlin does.” At Eggsy’s disbelieving scoff, Harry raised a brow. “Do you not create what are essentially patterns of behaviours, _personalities_ , for other beings? Do you not send them out to work among living, sentient creatures?”

“That ain’t even close to being the same thing, and you know it. The depth of the AI I help code ain’t all that sophisticated. And there are rules and limitations specifically put into place!”

“But, it was all originally Merlin’s open source foundations upon which you are building,” Harry pointed out like he was being perfectly reasonable. “And as you earlier pointed out, Merlin’s end products have resulted in tragic deaths before, what makes you so sure yours won’t turn out the same?”

“Because I’m programming it!” Eggsy shouted. “The bots are just...just _tools_. Mindless, dumb tools! I direct them. I tell them what to do!”

His voice bounced off the buildings and ground, ringing in his ears, hollow and angry and empty with realisation.

Harry’s face didn’t grow smug in victory, but softer. Quieter. “Didn’t, then, the terrorists who hacked into and reprogrammed the bots that ultimately killed your father do the same?”

Eggsy said nothing.

“Maybe it’s time to reassess what you thought you knew, Eggsy,” Harry said, not unsympathetically. “And maybe it’s time to learn how to forgive.”

There was an intense burning in the back of his eyes, a great pressure mounting in his chest. _Fuck_. He was _not_ going to fucking break down in the middle of the street. That just wasn’t fucking on.

A handkerchief was thrust into his face.

“You’re still kinda a prick,” Eggsy said as he took it and balled it up in his hand. His voice still went a bit wobbly, but he smiled all the same.

“Yes, I do have to amuse myself somehow,” Harry said.

“So is that what you do, then? _Forgive_? Forgive them sheep-fucking locals for tearing you apart?”

“Oh, goodness no.” Harry appeared appalled by the very thought. “No, I was quite satisfied with Merlin’s chosen form of vengeance.”

“What was that?”

“Those men were in dire financial straits and struggling to maintain their land holdings. They were stubborn about it, though, considering most of it had been in their families for generation. Plenty of emotional attachment to the place, I suppose. However, Merlin managed to persuade them to sell up for a very generous sum, all things considered, and promptly turned it over to a Swedish land developer to, I hear, develop into Scotland’s next great golf resort?”

The land deal. Merlin’s sudden seeming capitulation to Tilde’s deal and...Eggsy had to admire the whole thing now. Baller move, that. “That’s...pretty fucking cold. And brilliant.” And possibly made him rethink ever getting on Merlin’s bad side, if he hadn’t already. _Fuck_.

“As you can see, Merlin can be vindictive towards those he feels have wronged others.” Harry’s satisfied smile turned contemplative. “One can only imagine what he does when he turns that intensity on himself.”

“You saying...that all this?” Eggsy waved a hand in the air to indicate Merlin’s sudden entrance into the spotlight, putting a face to a name, the whirlwind publicity tour, the lab visit today, “is being done out of….self-directed anger? Because of me?”

Harry gave him an unimpressed look, and Eggsy flushed. Yeah, that did sound a bit conceited. “I do think,” Harry said, ”you opened his eyes to something he has always hidden himself away from, an entire world of messy, complicated humans, and that the purity of his work does not always maintain its integrity once it leaves his hands. You showed him the negative consequences of that, and that he needed to do better.”

“So this is him...trying to do better.”

“This is him trying to do better,” Harry confirmed.

“It was nice to see him again,” Eggsy finally felt safe enough to admit. “After everything. For someone who’s supposed to a misanthrope, he looked comfortable. Charming as fuck. He looks real nice in that suit.”

“Did you like it? I made it myself,” Harry said, pleased.

“You’ve hidden talents. I knew the farm was beneath you.” Eggsy grinned. He reckoned the very suits Harry wore was also self-made as well. 

“A gentleman never boasts, Eggsy.”

“Then it’s a good thing I ain’t no gentleman because if I had them skills, bruv, I’d be fucking hanging a shingle on Savile Row.” Might pay a bit better than his current gig too, as the posh still paid a pretty penny for handmade—that one never changed since the days of early manufacturing. But he supposed they were each, now, locked into their own different journeys. Eggsy would cringe at all the red correction marks Dr Spencer made on each draft of his paper whilst trying to eek into whatever conference would have him. Merlin would continue to travel the world and create world-changing things, Harry every loyal by his side, their reach now, extended far beyond the borders of a peaceful little farm in the Highlands. On that dim thought, Eggsy adjusted his sack on his shoulder and turned to go. “Well. I should get going. I’m sure Merlin’s just about winding up his day as well. It was great talking to you, yeah? Great knowing you’re alright too, Harry.”

“Eggsy.” 

Again, Eggsy found himself turning back to Harry.

“Have you any plans this evening?”

Netflix on the couch with Tilde and Rox, as it nearly was every night if they didn’t decide to go to the pub. He didn’t exactly have a lot of time or energy (or friends or money) these days for much more. “Um, not tonight, no.”

“Hmm. Good,” Harry said before turning to open the driver’s seat and climbing in behind the wheel.

Eggsy frowned and couldn’t help asking before Harry shut the door. “That it?”

Harry gave him a surprised look. “Yes, I should think so. I have to bring the car round and it’s getting to be that time. Have a good afternoon, Eggsy. It was great catching up. I do hope one day we will have the opportunity to do so again.” 

For the second time that day, that strange underwhelming feeling curdled at the edges of his thoughts. But honestly, what had he expected? Harry certainly didn’t owe him anything for all but rejecting his master and abandoning them. “You too, Harry. Don’t let your boss work you too hard.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem: my boss says I hardly work.” With a smirk tossed in Eggsy’s direction, Harry shut his door and the tinted windows cut him from Eggsy’s view.

 

_____

 

The conversation seemed to follow Eggsy home and stayed with him long after he stepped through the door to his flat and rebuffed all of Roxy’s beseeching looks and demanding questions in favour of washing up and getting the smell of dog off him. He stayed mostly silent all through dinner and then after when they retired to the couch and let whatever programme Roxy had queued up play out on the telly.

“God, I can hear you stewing from here,” Roxy finally said as she jabbed at the remote control to pause the auto-play into the next episode. “Will you finally tell us what happened today? Because obviously something did.”

“Nothing happened, Rox,” Eggsy said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Bollocks.”

“I’m serious. Merlin came to tour the lab, I showed him some of my research, he said some nice things, and then he left. Then I ran into Harry on my way home home and we talked a little bit about the past year and said goodbye to each other. It was all very pleasant and civil.”

“Then why do you look like someone ran over your puppy?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, I do not!”

“You do too!”

“Alright,” Tilde interrupted with the exasperation of someone who sometimes found herself acting like the only adult in the room. She reached over Roxy’s body from where it was draped across her lap and took control of the remote. The next moment, the telly screen went black and Eggsy knew there was no escaping this conversation now. “Really, Eggsy. Roxy isn’t wrong. But,” she clamped a hand over Roxy’s mouth before she could crow in victory, “you don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to.”

Eggsy looked at the two of them, curled around each other like cats. Roxy giving Tilde an annoyed but still so impossibly loving look. Tilde’s hand splayed across her thigh, rubbing soothingly, like she knew all the ways to calm Roxy down. Of course she would. They’ve been together for years. They knew each other’s grooves and surfaces from muscle memory, each other’s ticks and pleasures and frustrations and annoying habits. As comfortable with each other as old, well-worn clothes.

He’s lonely.

He’s so fucking lonely sometimes, and it was hard to admit. Always having to go it alone, support himself, bring himself up to be better, stronger, smarter, more resilient. He had people to take care of, who relied on him. And it was a lonely life, in the end.

“I think I was angry at him because I blamed him for all the sacrifices I had to make in my life.” No question as to who the _he_ was here. “It was easy to do, blame a name. Someone who didn’t have a face and I didn’t know. And then today, Harry pointed something out to me and it’s forced me to look things differently...and now...and now all I can think about is how I’ve once again fucked things up and ruined what could have been something nice. For once, something really nice.”

Roxy peeled Tilde’s hand from her mouth, but kept it curled within hers in her lap. “Oh Eggsy.”

Without prompting, she disentangled herself from Tilde and moved over to him to surround him with all her limbs like a fucking octopus. Legs too. Her sudden weight took him off guard and caused them both to toppled over over onto the couch cushions.

“Oof! Rox!” Eggsy gasped, going from teary-eyed to having all the breath knocked from his lungs in an instant. “Get off, you fucking barnacle!”

“No,” Roxy said as stubbornly as her limbs remained smothering Eggsy. “Clearly you weren’t hugged enough as a little egg. I’m remedying that.”

“Thanks, but I think I’ll be fine!” Eggsy protested, trying to wriggle away and only ending up falling on his hands and knees on the floor, Roxy now slung around his back like a baby monkey. “Seriously? I am not your horse.”

“No, but I bet you’d let Merlin ride you like one.” Roxy smirked and gave his hind quarter a good slap.

“Oh, you fucking little—”

“Shut up the both of you, my phone is ringing!” Tilde shouted at them, make them both freeze like two scolded children before her face transformed into what Eggsy termed as her _professional expression_ as she accepted the call on her mobile. “Hello, this is Tilde Bernadotte speaking.”

Roxy took advantage of Eggsy’s momentary stillness to flick his ear, and it was off. Eggsy shifted his weight to dump her unceremoniously on the floor with a _thump_ whilst he tried make an attack on her ribs where he knew she was especially ticklish, but Roxy countered his movement and pinched his nose between her fingers.

“Eggsy,” Tilde’s voice cut in sharply, causing another ceasefire in their war yet again. “There’s someone who wants to talk to you.”

“And they called on your phone?”

Tilde held out her mobile towards him insistently. “Just take it.”

After awkwardly shifting off Roxy, Eggsy tentatively took Tilde’s mobile and brought it to his ear. Then, seeing the look of anticipation on both his all too eager flatmates’ faces, he made a quick retreat to his room before mustering up the courage to speak. “Hello?”

“Hello, Eggsy.”

All the air seemed to be sucked out of the room as Eggsy’s entire focus zeroed in on that painfully familiar voice. “Hamish.” And did his voice really have to come out all whispery like that?

“Forgive me for interrupting anything. And for using Tilde’s contact. I didn’t have your new number.”

“I got a new one through the lab,” Eggsy said, still in a daze. “Part of a deal where they pay for it and I’m at their beck and call 24/7.”

“Ah. That would explain things.”

Eggsy didn’t know what he heard in that voice. What it meant. “You could’ve just looked me up. I imagine a few academic firewalls aren’t much of a match for you.”

“That would have been a line I would never want to cross.”

He closed his eyes and cringed. “Right. Right, sorry. I know that.”

“No. You have every reason to think the worst of me.”

“No, I don’t. I really don’t,” Eggsy said almost sharply.

The ensuing silence was a little too long to be comfortable.

Hamish finally cleared his throat. “So, I was calling because I know we didn’t really have much time to speak earlier. I’m sorry. My schedule was incredibly packed. I didn’t want you to think I was….”

“I understand. It’s fine. You’re doing a lot these days. It’s nice to see. It was nice to see you.”

After another prolonged pause during which Eggsy found himself holding his breath, Hamish at last asked, “Would you like to meet up tonight? My duties for the day are finished and Harry told me you didn’t have any plans sorted as of mid-afternoon, but I understand that that could have changed since. Please don’t feel obligated to say yes. I’m only asking because I thought it would be—”

“Yes,” Eggsy said, cutting him off. “That’d be nice.”

“Great.” Hamish sounded relieved. “That’s great. It’s a bit late for dinner I know. And, to be honest, I’m rather shattered. Would you mind, say, meeting me at my hotel? We could have drinks. Or we could go down to the hotel bar. Or out somewhere too, if that’s more comfortable.”

“Your hotel sounds good, yeah.” Jesus, Eggsy could feel himself speaking at hyperspeed, as fast as his racing heart. “Um...where are you staying?”

“The Corinthia. Just go to the front desk and ask to see Hamish Douglas. I’ll make sure they bring you right up.”

Eggsy couldn’t help laughing. “Hamish Douglas. Really.”

“It’s nice when no one knows your real name, eh?”

“Alright then. I’ll see you in a half hour?”

“Yes. That would be lovely,” Hamish said softly. “I’m looking forward to it, Eggsy. Thank you.”

When Eggsy’s legs would no longer support him, he fell down upon his bed and stared up at the smooth white ceiling. He was seeing his ex... _something_. In a half hour. In his posh hotel. And he was wearing a Batman onesie Roxy once got him as a gag gift but was actually really comfortable. _Shit_.

In the next ten minutes, he was a whirlwind of frantic activity as he went through five different wardrobe changes before settling on a jumper and his least wrinkled pair of trousers. And then his _hair_ , which really oughtn’t look like he bothered to style it, because he shouldn’t come across as having put in so much effort, but he didn’t want to look like a slob either, but this wasn’t a _date_ or anything. And then his _shoes_ , Jesus all he had were garish trainers, but it’s not like he should get out his fucking dress shoes, except none of his current trainers would match.

Tilde almost got beaned in the head when she suddenly opened his door just as Eggsy chucked one of his stupid, tatty winged trainers at it. “Jesus, Eggsy!”

Eggsy winced. “Sorry. Sorry, I’m being stupid.”

Tilde eyed up his appearance. “You’re going out to see him.”

He tried not to flush. “We’re meeting up for a talk is all.”

“Of course.” Tilde hardly looked convinced. “Do you have preparations?”

“Preparations?”

“Condoms? Lube? Toys?” Tilde rattled off, looking at Eggsy like he was particularly slow.

“ _Toys_?” Eggsy squeaked, positively horrified. “Tilde, what the fuck? No! No of course not! This ain’t that sort of meeting!”

“Of course.” Tilde nodded before turning back to the hall to call out to Roxy. “Roxy, love, do you still have my little white bag? You know, the one I made specially for Eggsy should he ever need it?”

And more distantly, Roxy shouting back, “How am I suppose to find it among all the other white bags you own?”

“It’s the one big enough to hold an eighteen-inch—”

“Tilde, no! Stop!” Eggsy said, wishing he could flee out the window. “I ain’t walking into Hamish’s hotel room with a bag of sex toys!”

“Found it!” Roxy called out. “Or, many possibilities at least!”

“Good! Will you bring it to me?” Tilde looked back at Eggsy. “So you’re meeting in your man’s hotel room.”

“It’s not what you’re thinking!” Eggsy’s face was surely as red as fucking tomato by now. “We’re not going to shag, and even if we were, I’m not going to start by whipping out the handcuffs and spreader bar on the first go round!”

Tilde arched a brow. “So that’s where your preferences lie.”

“Fucking hell.” There wasn’t even a nearby hard surface he could smash his head repeatedly on.

“Well, suit yourself then.” Tilde shrugged. “I’m sure his hotel has all the basic amenities you would need when the time comes.”

“We’re not going to fuck, Tilde.”

“Not if you don’t leave in the next minute, you won’t.”

Eggsy glanced at his watch, realising the time, and sprang to his feet in renewed panic. “Shit. I’m gonna be late.”

Roxy pushed his door open wider, holding up four different bags. “I’ve narrowed it down to these four, and honestly, I can’t tell which one’s Eggsy’s and which one’s for our weekend at—”

“I don’t want to even know,” Eggsy said, cutting her off. “I’m not taking anything with me.”

Roxy glanced at his feet. “Not even your shoes?”

When Eggsy followed her gaze, he realised he still hadn’t solved his initial problem. “Fuck. I don’t have any proper shoes.”

“I gave you a nice pair of _tasteful_ black trainers for your birthday, you know. You just never wear them,” Tilde reminded him.

Right! Eggsy had completely forgotten about those, thinking he’d save them for slightly dressier occasions that didn’t quite reach official ceremony levels. “Tilde, you’re a fucking genius, I could kiss you right now.”

“Save it for your man,” Roxy said. “Conserve your saliva.”

“We’re not gonna shag! Why doesn’t anyone get that?”

Tilde and Roxy gave each other a _look_ , that annoying one that let them read each other’s mind without ever having to speak, before Tilde turned back to him, looking perfectly, Swedishly agreeable. “Of course.”

 

_____

 

Of course, the Corinthia Hotel lobby was going to be ostentatious and intimidating as all fuck. Huge, high-ceilinged, and airy. Gigantic fuck all chandelier hanging from the ceiling, all striking a balance between highbrow and modern. Eggsy felt dirty just by standing on its polished tile. For a split second, he thought about turning tail and running, but the hotel staff were already giving him polite side eyes without making it look they were paying any attention to him at all, and then his defiant streak kicked in.

So he held his head up high and pinned his shoulders back and looked the front desk worker in the eye when he informed her one Eggsy Unwin wanted to see Hamish Douglas, and to his eternal surprise, the staff worker’s blank wall expression dissolved into a big smile. “Of course, Mr Unwin. Mr Douglas is staying in the Whitehall Penthouse. If you would just follow me and I’ll give you lift access.”

Penthouse. Right. It was always so easy to forget that Hamish was, in fact, the wealthiest man in the world. He followed the staff worker to the private lift and watched her swipe her card in the reader. “Just press the button labeled WP for the correct floor. Have a good evening, Mr Unwin. Please call down to the front desk if there is anything else you should require.”

Unbidden, the thought of what Tilde would ask for—condoms, lube, and gargantuan sex toys—sprung deliriously into mind as he tried to imagine what expression the woman across from him would have if he dared voice the request and he almost started laughing nervously. “Thank you.”

The ride up felt almost too long and too quiet with only his reflection to stare back at him in the mirrored walls, but eventually the doors parted and he was standing before the door to Hamish’s penthouse. All he had to do was knock.

He ran a hand through his hair one last time, balled it into a fist, and was about to rap upon the wood when it swung open.

“Ah, Eggsy. Twice in one day! What a pleasant turn of events,” Harry said.

“Like you didn’t have this all planned.” Eggsy narrowed his eyes.

“Well, Merlin didn’t build me just for my looks, now did he?”

“That’s enough, Harry,” Hamish’s said from somewhere beyond Harry that Eggsy couldn’t see. “You can go celebrate your success by raiding the bar and pouring good liquor down the sink.”

Harry stepped aside to let Eggsy pass and enter into a long narrow hall with parquet floors and wood paneling. From brief glimpses into what rooms he could see, of course the Whitehall Penthouse consisted of some lovely handsome accommodations. Heavy wood and rich red and gold accents, all very reassuringly masculine.

“He’s in the office to your left,” Harry told him.

Eggsy nodded and started in the direction Harry indicated, rounding the doorway and finally seeing Hamish for himself.

Hamish was sitting at the desk, his attention so deeply occupied by something on his tablet so that he didn’t even hear Eggsy’s arrival. It let Eggsy take a necessary moment to brace himself and get a good look at him in a way he couldn’t back at the lab. Hamish hadn’t quite managed to change fully out of the suit he’d worn that day, but he had tapered it to just his now somewhat wrinkled white dress shirt, collar unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up to expose his strong forearms. He looked carelessly and unguardedly handsome. A posh businessman ready to relax at the end of a long day. “Hello, Hamish.”

Hamish looked up, and once again Eggsy felt gutted by the intensity of those eyes upon him. “Hello, Eggsy,” he greeted warmly, immediately setting down his tablet, standing up, and rounding the desk to approach him.

But when he drew up to Eggsy, his earlier eagerness and confidence seemed to wane. His hand made an abortive movement by his side and he shifted awkwardly. “Would you like to sit down? I’ve got a nice fire going. Not really like it is back home, but it’ll do.”

“Alright.” A little gas-powered fireplace occupied the other end of the office and was blazing merrily. Eggsy sat on one end of the yellow gold couch closest to it and tried to look casual without outright slouching into the thing. 

But Hamish remained standing. “Would you care for a drink? They don’t really have my preferred whisky, but there’s some passable fare.”

“No. Thanks. I’m fine, really.” Best not to have the temptation to get absolutely pissed right now.

Hamish was too polite to fetch a drink for himself when his guest wasn’t imbibing, so it left little else for him to do but take a seat on the other end of the couch. 

Already, Eggsy was regretting not having that drink after all. “So. How was the rest of your day?”

“It was good,” Hamish said. “I saw many impressive projects and research being done. The future looks bright.”

“Well, it’s all thanks to you and your grants. Many of those students wouldn’t have nearly the means to do what they’re doing now,” Eggsy said, fully aware how he was babbling but he unable to stop himself. Nor was he able to stop himself from blurting out, “Did you know I was a student at the uni before you came?”

“I didn’t know until I read the schedule this morning. And even then, I wasn’t sure it was you until I actually saw you.”

“But you must have seen my name on the list of students awarded grants.”

“To be honest, the Foundation committee vets all recipients. I just sign where they tell me to.” Hamish looked sheepish. “I’m still not much of a pen pusher.”

“Did you...do all this because of me?”

Hamish looked briefly taken aback. “I...no.”

“Good,” Eggsy said quickly. “I mean...no, I mean really. Because, like, I was getting it in my head that maybe all of this was...was because of some guilt thing because of what I said, and it sounds fucking crazy now that I’m saying it aloud. Really self-absorbed, right? So. So it’s good to know that none of this was because….”

“Well, it might have begun with you,” Hamish amended, and at Eggsy’s alarmed look, hastened to add, “But it became so much more than that. I...Eggsy. The things you said—”

“Were said in anger,” Eggsy rushed to fill in. “And a place of hurt that went well beyond anything you ever did.”

“You were right,” Hamish, and that shut Eggsy right up. “I...wanted to remain ignorant of the world I helped to usher in. I thought it was simply enough to be allowed to go about my work in a vacuum. That I didn’t have to be responsible for happened to my creations once they left my lab. I didn’t want to be. People are...difficult and so frequently disappointing. I didn’t have any siblings growing up. My parents died when I was young. I grew up in a series of care homes. No one wanted to adopt a strange, introverted boy who liked working on machines over interacting with people.”

It was the first real glimpse into Hamish’s childhood he’d ever had. And then Eggsy recalled how Merlin had built Harry when he’d been terribly young. Terribly lonely. At least Eggsy had his mum. And then later, he had Daisy. “I’m sorry. That sounds awful.”

“It doesn’t excuse my negligence. My willingness to remain ignorant of what bad actors have done with my work, and that everything I do has real consequences on people, good and bad. I’ve changed the way the world works. Taken away a lot of livelihoods. Someone has to take responsibility. I needed to put my face out there in the world and claim it.”

“That someone shouldn’t all be you,” Eggsy said. “Look, I...I was wrong to blame my father’s death all on you. I was wrong to pin all the shit in my life on you too. You didn’t bring my stepfather into my life and you didn’t force me to run drugs for him and get arrested more times you can count on one hand. It was easier to lash out than it was to be reminded of all that again. And for that, I’m sorry. I wish I hadn’t run away like a coward. I wish I knew then what I do now.”

“And what’s that?” Hamish stared at his hands. Long and elegant and strong. Callused from working the fields or working with metal, Eggsy didn’t know. Probably both.

Eggsy took a deep breath, and still he felt a little lightheaded. Admitting the truth wasn’t exactly easy. “That I wish I had given us a chance. That...I miss you. And when I saw you walk into the lab….”

“Eggsy,” Hamish said, daring to up and curling a hand over the back of Eggsy’s neck, large and heavy and warm. Eggsy could feel the way his thumb brushed across his skin in shiver-inducing movements.

They were too close. Eggsy could feel the heat off Hamish’s skin, smell his aftershave that reminded him of the grass back at the farm. “I said we weren’t gonna shag tonight,” he whispers absentmindedly.

Hamish’s brows furrowed in confusion. “What?”

“I’m never gonna hear the end of it,” Eggsy said instead before closing the last minute distance between their mouths.

From the way he kissed back, Hamish wasn’t all that caught up with knowing what Eggsy was talking about anyway.

 

_____

 

Harry woke them up by yanking open the blackout curtains and practically shouting, “Rise and shine, you two lovebirds!”

Eggsy blinked open his eyes, which was a big fucking mistake, because the unusually bright sun immediately seared his retinas. “Fuck’s sake!” He slammed them shut and attempted to bury himself into Hamish’s chest and breathe in the scent of his skin, which was a much nicer place to be. “Harry, you fucking tosser.”

“Keep it up and I’m gonna turn you into a nanny bot,” Hamish rumbled from somewhere above him. His accent was thicker when he was tired. Eggsy could hear it vibrate in his chest, like being covered in warm toffee.

“And this is the thanks I am to receive for getting both of you to pull your heads from your respective arses and replace them with other far more pleasurable body parts,” Harry said, sounding put out. “Anyway, coffee and breakfast are waiting in the dining room. Merlin, you do have a busy day ahead of you. I’ll give you five more minutes to get yourselves decent. My god, the sight of your pale backsides is more blinding than the sun!”

As Harry left the bedroom, still complaining about being traumatised for life, Eggsy finally lifted his head and met Hamish’s still sleepy gaze. Every bit of him was pleasantly sore and tingly. “There goes my hope for a lie in. Good morning.”

Hamish smiled at him almost dopily. “Good morning.” He raised his hand and patted down what surely had to be Eggsy’s atrocious bed hair.

“It’s frankly unfair you don’t have to suffer some morning indignities,” Eggsy told him, nosing into his palm when it travelled over to cup his cheek.

“Silver linings,” Hamish said wryly.

Eggsy sighed. “I suppose I’ve got to get ready for work. You as well, it would seem. Maybe meet up tonight again then?” 

“Eggsy, I’ve got to fly home tonight.”

And just like that, all the wam languor that had settled into his bones vanished. “Oh. Guess I’ll have to ask for a raincheck.” Hamish was a busy man. Maybe it would makes. God, another year. Maybe this was just a one time thing. A _this was nice but don’t call me_ situation after all. 

“Indeed,” Hamish said gravely. “We both live in different places now. Have different lives. Busy lives, even.”

Eggsy’s heart sank even further. “I know.” 

“So how about on the weekend?”

“What?”

”I could fly down. Or you could fly up. See the farm again. JD and Sadie miss you. I’d say the rest of the flock do too but their brains are very tiny. I’ve been relying on Ginger as my veterinarian, but I must say, it’s hardly the same.”

“You….” Eggsy blinked. “You still want to make this work? The distance? Our schedules now that you’re the new jet-setting, PR darling who does actual camera interviews and goes on news programmes now?”

Hamish looked at him like he’d said something especially obvious. “Eggsy, after all this time and all that’s happened, you think I’d be content with just one night and be on my merry way? I never want to lose you again.”

“I wish I could go back to the farm,” Eggsy admitted. “I liked it there. It had started to feel a bit like home.”

“...but you have a life to lead here,” Hamish concluded. “Well, it can still be your home if you want it to be. Or even just a place to get away. The farm will be waiting for you whenever you want to come back to it, any time. For any amount of time.”

 _Home._ It sounded nice. Eggsy leaned down and kissed him. “And you?”

Hamish smiled against his lips, pulling back just enough to say, “I reckon the offer’s very similar.”

“Then I guess I accept your offer, Mr Douglas,” Eggsy said. “When do you want me to start?”

Hamish didn’t even have to think about it as he enveloped Eggsy in his arms and gently rolled them until he had Eggsy pinned beneath him, long, muscular body covering him like a blanket. “Sooner rather than later would be preferable. As soon as possible, even.”

Eggsy studied the face of the man he may very well love now. The man who he had blamed for destroying his past. The man who he wanted a future with, whatever it would hold: AI, sheep, dogs, all of it. He wanted all of it, like he never wanted anything before. “Then consider it done.”

But first, he’d start with a proper morning shag, even if he guessed Harry wasn’t going to be very happy them.

(He was right.)


End file.
